Backstory: Russian Politics

Last weekend, thousands gathered in Moscow to protest for new parliamentary elections after accusations of fraud and widespread vote falsification were made. On Monday, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov announced that he would challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the presidential election in the spring. And Wednesday, the speaker of Parliament—an ally of Putin’s—resigned. On today’s Backstory, Stephen Sestanovich, George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy at Columbia University, talks about what this week’s events say about Russia’s political landscape.