rise in utilities costs who have joined an unsanctioned protest."

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In the simulation, which was held in the suburbs of the city of about 325,000, riot police and Russia's equivalent of SWAT teams use stun grenades to disorient the crowd, while barbed wire is used to cordon off the protesters in a process called "kettling." In the simulation, the newspaper writes, "the protesters are cut into two groups, after which they are all cordoned off. Then the most active rioters are detained and brought to the police station for further proceedings." In real life, the newspaper noted wryly, Smolensk's utilities infrastructure is one of the most accident-prone in the nation.

The two agencies responsible for breaking up the crowd, OMON (riot police) and SOBR (similar to the United States' SWAT),were both transferred into the national guard, according to the order for the guard's creation posted on the Kremlin's website (English version here has less detail), along with weapons and drug-enforcement agencies.

"There is no real reason for creating the National Guard out of the Interior Troops and other forces unless you have a serious worry about public unrest," Mark Galeotti, professor at New York University and a specialist on Russian security, argued in a recent column. Supporters of the government argue the new agency will streamline law enforcement.

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Earlier this month, Open Russia — a news website critical of the Kremlin backed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian oligarch who was jailed under Putin for a decade — released another video that showed Russian riot police (the website claims