[CondoleezzaProtege]

This is more than likely because of some discovery of massive corruption.

So anything threatening Saint Vlad Putin's grip is 'corrupt'

...right....

[billakay]

If you could provide some evidence that this is the reason, I would entertain this theory, but the article doesn't claim this (in fact, it specifically claims that elections in these cities were non-competitive).

Based on what I've been presented, I don't see any reason to believe that this is because "Putin Man Bad".

The Putin-o-phobia I see here is really not much different than the "Orange Man Bad" craze we see among the left.