Dmitry Medvedev's Building Project
The Economist comments that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev talks up modernization, but to little purpose.
Ultimately his recipe for change is implausible and there is a growing gap between his words and reality. That reality includes the recent sudden death of Sergei Magnitsky, who worked for Hermitage Capital. The Economist notes that Magnitsky's death was shocking, but hardly unusual: many people die in pre-trial detention across Russia, and even more in prison.
Medvedev is unlikely to stop the hostage-taking, corporate raids by state agencies, rent-seeking and corruption that have become part of a system. It is a system that began in 2000 under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which kept a pregnant YUKOS lawyer and the firm's fatally ill manager in prison in an effort to make them testify against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is now on trial once more. And it is the main obstacle to Russia's modernisation.