Неприятно читать, но на 100% верно

One of the reasons I left my correspondent's post in Moscow was because Russia, despite all the foam on the water, is ultimately a very boring place. Unfortunately, all you really need to do to seem clairvoyant about the place is to be an utter pessimist. Will Vladimir Putin allow the ostensibly liberal Dmitry Medvedev to have a second term? Not a chance. There are protests in the streets of Moscow. Will Putin crackdown? Yup. There's rumbling in the Crimea, will Putin take advantage and take the Crimean peninsula? You betcha.

As I wrote earlier this month, Russia, like the U.S., projects its own mindset onto the rest of the world. So when you hear Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and the talking heads on Russia Today crowing about American cynicism and machinations, well, keep in mind whom they're really talking about.