Greedy grab:

For a leader who has everything — control of the military, the government, the voting process and the media, President Vladimir Putin of Russia looks increasingly desperate and threatened ahead of parliamentary elections on Sunday. Polls suggest his United Russia party will win the balloting overwhelmingly, giving him leverage to continue wielding power in some form. But his greedy grab for victory while quashing credible political opposition demonstrates that this is no free and fair election and Russia is no democracy.

Last weekend, two rallies by an anti-Putin coalition protesting the unfairness of the election were broken up by truncheon-wielding riot police. Boris Nemtsov, another presidential candidate, was also detained, as were dozens of other pro-democracy activists. Putin has accused the US of persuading international monitors to withdraw from observing Russia’s elections and thus undermining them. But it is he who has taken the legitimacy out of the election process.

The US, Europe and Japan prematurely brought Russia into the elite group of leading industrialised nations by arguing that it would encourage Moscow on a democratic path. Now they must stand together as democracies and make clear that Russia’s reversion to its autocratic past is unacceptable.