A culture of deep corruption: Russia marches to its own drum

Russia hosts two major events next year but neither will be run in a way that inspires the kind of confidence the West at least aspires to have in its administration of public events.

A presidential election begins in March but in recent days the leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny was banned from standing because of a conviction in a fraud case. He insists the case was contrived to keep him out of politics. As the usual, and often fatal, shots across the bow offered to opponents of the Putin regime go this seems almost charitable.