via the Telegraph:

In a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mikhail Kasyanov, who served as prime minister under Mr Putin from 2000-2004, alleged that Mr Putin was running scared.

“He is angry and frightened and has lost his self-control,” said Mr Kasyanov, who tried to run against Mr Putin for the presidency in 2008, only to be disqualified on what he said was a trumped-up technicality.

“Putin understands that social pressure on him is growing all the time. He is nervous.”

Mr Kasyanov, who used to be on good terms with the strongman Russian leader until he and his cabinet were unceremoniously fired by the then president in 2004, said he felt it was the beginning of the end for Mr Putin.

“For the first time I have no doubt that if I or one of my colleagues was registered as a presidential candidate we would definitely win in the second round of voting. Putin has no doubt of that too, which is why he is afraid of us.”

That’s pretty much an accurate description of our very own Barack Obama as well. His anger and hatred of the loyal opposition is well documented and he is frightened to death of being a one-term president and be forced to watch as his progressive-socialist-quasi-Marxist framework would get dismantled.

Check this out. This is the Obama presidency described perfectly:

Amid growing anger among the middle classes at rampant official corruption, authoritarianism, and the total dominance of Mr Putin and his allies, it was the biggest protest of its kind since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union…

Mr Putin’s ruling United Russia party saw its share of the vote fall by 15 per cent in the contested election and Mr Putin’s own popularity rating has slumped to 51 per cent, its lowest level this year, a new poll showed on Friday. Mr Kasyanov said people were simply sick of corruption and the total lack of democracy in every walk of life.

It’s uncanny how Russia and the United States are so similar, isn’t it?