These days anti-war demonstrations in the centre of Moscow pull in only a few hundred people.

ECONOMIST: Who needs democracy?

One of the law's main weaknesses is that it does not take account of the cost of living: a war veteran in the centre of Moscow will get the same paltry handful of rubles as one living in far cheaper regions.

ECONOMIST: For richer or for poorer? | The

But all were in or around Chechnya itself, far from the centre of power in Moscow.

ECONOMIST: Terrorism in Russia: The Chechens strike | The

But it stands now where none can avoid seeing it, on a bend in the river at the centre of Moscow.

ECONOMIST: Peter the downright Terrible

After Mr Medvedev's relatively amicable meeting with Barack Obama a month ago, NATO's actions have caused confusion in Moscow, says Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre.

ECONOMIST: Russia and its near abroad

Scott Gehlbach and Konstantin Sonin, of the Centre for Economic and Financial Research in Moscow, argue that three factors have influenced businessmen to go into politics in post-Soviet countries.

ECONOMIST: Why do professional paths to the top vary so much?

In truth, though, as Masha Lipman, of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, comments, today's Kremlinologists are little more reliable than were their predecessors, who would spend hours minutely scrutinising photographs of the politburo at Red Square parades.

ECONOMIST: Russia's government