Mr Gorbachev's always had a wider vision. Freedom and democracy.
BTW, is the pipeline a supply strategy for his future botox dependency? The man's head looks like a over stretched balloon! Oooo Mr Putin why don't you just have a cocktail down old compton street, kick back and forget yourself deary!
Criticism of Vladimir Putin[edit]
Although he has credited Vladimir Putin for stabilizing Russia in the aftermath of the initial and turbulent years of the post-Soviet era, Gorbachev has become critical of both Putin and his successor (and predecessor) Dmitry Medvedev since at least March 2011.[53] His main grievances about the "tandem" are backsliding on democracy, corruption, and the dominance of security officers. Gorbachev is also dissatisfied by the fact that he has not been allowed to register his social democratic party.[54]
When being interviewed by the BBC to reflect on the 20th anniversary of the August Coup, Gorbachev again announced his dissatisfaction with the policies and rule of Putin. Speaking of the status of democracy in the Russian Federation, he proclaimed: "The electoral system we had was nothing remarkable but they have literally castrated it". Gorbachev also stated that he believed that Putin should not have sought a third term as the Russian president in 2012.[55]
In response to the 2011 Russian protests as a result of United Russia's controversial victory in the Russian legislative election, 2011, he called on the authorities to hold a new election, citing electoral irregularities and ballot box stuffing.[56]
In a political lecture delivered to the RIA-Novosti news agency in April 2013, Gorbachev decried Putin's retreat from democracy, noting that in Russia "politics is increasingly turning into imitation democracy" with "all power in the hands of the executive branch". Gorbachev addressed Putin directly, stating that "to go further on the path of tightening the screws, having laws that limit the rights and freedoms of people, attacking the news media and organizations of civil society, is a destructive path with no future".[57]
