How president keeps grip on his country

THE Russia election result was exactly what I expected. I thought Putin would get around 75% of the vote as the competing parties have to be seen to be given something.

Putin has not lost any support because of what happened in Britain in the past few weeks. Most people across Russia only collect information from controlled TV channels.

We are dealing with a highlevel propaganda machine. Many Russians, definitely more than 50%, believe enemies are around, that everybody wants to destroy and humiliate Russia, and that Putin is protecting Russia, making it independent and stronger every day.

It is possible the timing of the poisoning is linked to the elections. If other recent deaths in Skripal’s family were not connected to his poisoning, a decision was probably made to do it just prior to the election.

This would be a case of military intelligence wanting to settle old scores, knowing the West is going to retaliate.

Whatever the scenario, it is impossible to presume Putin would not have been informed of this operation. The law passed in 2006 giving the FSB the power to kill enemies abroad has the caveat that it can only take place with permission of the president.

The election process was always corrupt in Russia, in 1993 when Boris Yeltsin became president and in 2000 when Putin was elected for the first time. But now they have completely killed it. From 2004 there has been no room for real opposition at all.

Every time the Kremlin or FSB realise there is a potential leader for the opposition, they deal with him physically. This happened with Boris Nemtsov, killed in Moscow in 2015.

Several opposition leaders have died in questionable circumstances.

With Alexei Navalny, they arrested him for crimes he never committed and through this he lost the constitutional right to stand for president.

Likewise, there are no political parties that can seriously mount an opposition.

Putin is supposedly a member of the biggest party but it is only the biggest because he is in it.

He holds all the power himself; he is above everything and everyone else.

Yuri’s book, The Putin Corporation, is out now in paperback, priced £9.99. ARRESTED Putin rival Alexei Navalny