Clearly stung by the turnout of Saturday’s demonstration against the parliamentary elections, Vladimir Putin has accused outside forces of attempting to influence the outcome of who leads the country that he loves so much.

That the former KGB man has brought stability is without a shadow of doubt, one only has to look at the state of this former superpower when he came to power.

A decade of Boris Yeltsin had pushed Russia to bankruptcy, defeat in Chechnya – though that was seen by others, including myself, as a magnimous move by the President – and a culture of a gangster economy, now known as the reign of the oligarchs.

Putin set about reversing some of this – no one doubts that everything he did, he did so for the sake of the sacred state of Russia.

But how much of a difference has that made – on the surface Moscow appears properous…