[Dog Gone]

Undercutting Putin only makes sense if you are certain he will be replaced by someone better. (See Jimmy Carter and "Shah of Iran")

[Carry_Okie]

I don't think that was Kasparov's point. He was indicating that we might have a better chance of assuring that better options remain in play by how we choose to react to Russia's machinations. There's nothing wrong with that.

[RussianConservative]

Funny thing is, maybe Putin can "get away" with things because 70%+ public like him...wonder why consider he turn Russia around. At this point, Communist party consider great victory when they recruit 18,000 member per year (they probably loose twice to death of old age) and now have only 500K members (or one third one percent of Russians).