Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday defended Vladimir Putin’s “moral” right to return for an historic third Kremlin term and denied having no real say under the Russian strongman. Medvedev told a late-night television host in an hour-long interview that he understood protesters who came out on the streets of Moscow this winter following Putin’s decision to switch jobs from prime minister back to president. The former KGB spy scored a crushing election win in March and then appointed Medvedev as his premier under a highly controversial job swap agreement that could keep the old allies in power for at least six more years. “From the legal standpoint and from the moral one as well — something that may be even more important — what we did was completely fair and legal,” Medvedev said.
