Russia’s flawed election and the humbling of a star

In Soviet days, citizens could generally tell a political crisis was afoot when, in place of the news, radio and television stations played nothing but loops of Swan Lake. Today’s equivalent to Tchaikovsky’s ballet score is the message “application unreachable”. When it flashes up on a web browser in Russia, whatever one was trying to find is likely to have been hit by Kremlin hackers in a denial-of-service attack on the site.

Russians this week have grown used to non-loading internet pages as Vladimir Putin, the stern ex-KGB chief who has run the country since 2000, faces the biggest crisis of his rule.

Parliamentary elections last Sunday yielded an embarrassing drop in support for the ruling United Russia party. Worse, the Kremlin was caught red-handed perpetrating a massive election fraud. Despite its best efforts the party emerged 77 seats down from the last election four years ago.