President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday denied that Vladimir Putin’s expected return to the Kremlin would throw Russia back to its past but admitted the decision disappointed some of his supporters.
Lampooned by liberals as a lame duck who had failed to change Russia in his presidency, Medvedev sought to regain the initiative in a town hall-style meeting with supporters at the trendy Red October complex in central Moscow. Medvedev is expected to take on the post of prime minister after ceding the Kremlin to Putin in 2012 elections and he insisted the authorities would press ahead with the political and economic change Russia urgently needs. “This arrangement is not a return to the past but a way to solve the tasks that stand before us,” Medvedev said, referring to the scheme unveiled last month for Russia’s ruling tandem to swap jobs.
Medvedev admitted for the first time that a portion of his supporters — who had pinned their hopes on him to modernise Russia — were disappointed by the decision to allow strongman Putin back into the Kremlin. “I know that some of my supporters — those people who had talked about the necessity of change — felt some kind of disappointment or some slight feeling of tension.”
