Russia: a gangster state - Telegraph Vladimir Putin came to power nearly 13 years ago to give Russia some direction after the increasingly ramshackle rule of Boris Yeltsin. Next Sunday, he stands for re-election as president after a four-year interlude in which his puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, has kept the seat warm for him. He is certain to be elected for a further six years, a constitutional amendment to extend the term having been passed in 2008. What can be expected from his return to the highest post in the land? The 1990s saw an exciting surge in the liberalisation begun under Mikhail Gorbachev. But its downside was the seizure of the commanding heights of the economy by the oligarchs. Under Mr Putin, they have been bridled or persuaded to flee the country. For those tempted to step out of line, the fate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil magnate who has served nearly a decade in jail, serves as a warning. Into their shoes have stepped the siloviki, or men of power - bureaucrats, like their master, who have wasted or pillaged money that should have gone into modernising the economy. The turning-point came with the grossly rigged parliamentary elections last December, which drove tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets. As Masha Gessen said in her interview with the Telegraph Magazine on Saturday: "It's humiliating to vote and have your vote stolen in that blatant manner... The most that can be hoped next Sunday is that the poll will be cleaner. But, given the unimpressive opposition, the best form of protest is abstention. Locked so firmly into the corrupt system he has created, Mr Putin is unlikely to have the courage to embrace radical reform. His long period in power is a reminder that a state without constraints becomes a gangster.