Putin is also driven by a desire to revive a lost empire, the Soviet Union (The Guardian, 23 January 2009);

И он воспользуется любыми средствами, чтобы достичь этого:

Russian oil and gas are his weapons of choice in a battle to reassert Russian dominance over its lost empire, to weaken European resistance to that grand design, and to reclaim respect and fear for Russia as a great power (The Times, 15 January 2009);

These pipelines are key to Mr Putin's divide-and-rule strategy (The Times, 15 January 2009);

Putin is a master tactician – able to deploy the right weapon at the right time. In Ukraine, Putin has demonstrated his might by refusing to supply gas until Kiev agrees to a humiliating 40% price increase. In Georgia, he has adopted a gradualist policy that began with influence and ends with annexation (The Guardian, 23 January 2009);

Putin … is happy to project his cultivated image as a stoic figure of authority, the heroic leader who revived Russia's global standing and transformed the ailing state into a major emerging power (The Guardian, 19 January 2009).

В британскую прессу начинает просачиваться информация о скором возвращении г-на Путина на пост Президента Российской Федерации:

… it is designed to prepare the former KGB operative for a return to power in the long run (The Guardian, 19 January 2009);

Rumours persist that Mr Putin plans a return to the Kremlin, perhaps even this year, to try to hold the system together (The Guardian, 26 January 2009).

В то же время делается отрицательный акцент на результатах неограниченного влияния В.В. Путина:

Putin is playing games and most of them breach the health and safety regulations of global diplomacy on a massive scale (Scotland On Sunday, 11 January 2009);

The Russian Prime Minister has done what no Soviet leader did - made Russia's key national asset an instrument of political blackmail. He has done it before, in 2006; he could do it again (The Times, 15 January 2009);

Власть В.В. Путина распространилась на все сферы жизнедеятельности, в том числе на средства массовой информации, производство и функционирование местного самоуправления:

One says "he" [Putin] because nobody is in any doubt about who runs Gazprom, the Russian gas giant. The highly public way in which Putin ordered the chief executive of Gazprom to cut off the supply to Ukraine, on television, was done for deliberate effect: the Tsar issued a command and was instantly obeyed (Scotland On Sunday, 11 January 2009);

Mr Putin introduced the measure to protect domestic car producers, controlled by Kremlin favourites… (Times Online, 26 January 2009);

Any candidate standing for office in Sochi will beanother of Mr Putin's playthings; a puppet whose strings are twisted by a fist in the Kremlin (The Times, 18 March 2009).

… in the Russian state-controlled media (The Guardian, 20 January);

State-controlled television is playing down the crisis, and most newspapers are also toeing the Kremlin line (The Independent, 2 February 2009);

Soft censorship defines the media landscape, and editors know instinctively which boundaries not to cross (the most important rule: never criticize Putin) (The Observer, 12 April 2009);

Russian television and most other newspapers, all under Putin’s thumb (The Observer, 12 April 2009).

Противостояние Путинскому режиму (Vladimir Putin’s regime) становится опасным, поэтому многие независимые журналисты, борцы за права и свободы человека, критики современного правительства боятся за свою жизнь:

Russia is now a gangster state - formally a democracy but in reality nothing of the kind - where the murder of Kremlin critics can take place with impunity (The Guardian, 28 January 2009);

… as ever in Russia when opponents of the regime are mysteriously gunned down - no police at the scene… The murders of these Kremlin foes - journalists, lawyers and critics of Russia’s security services - all have a common theme. Nobody is ever caught and punished (The Guardian, 28 January 2009);

The critics of Vladimir Putin … have a strange habit of being found shot or stabbed or poisoned (The Independent, 25 February 2009);

Human rights groups and opposition journalists in Russia fear they are “under siege” following the murder of a lawyer and journalist by a gunman (The Financial Times, 23 January 2009);

The committee to Protect Journalists estimates that at least 49 have been killed in Russia since 1992. Only in Iraq and Algeria it is more dangerous to be a journalist (New Statesman, 5 February 2009).

Британские СМИ возлагают большие надежды на то, что Д.А. Медведев освободится от влияния бывшего Президента В.В. Путина и обретет самостоятельность в принятии государственных решений, а его политика будет направлена в либеральное русло:

Dmitry Medvedev has also been making waves, prompting speculation that he is looking towards a post-Putin era (The Guardian, 19 February 2009);

Medvedev has begun to issue muffled criticism of his mentor (The Guardian, 3 March 2009);

Medvedev said responses to the financial crisis - set by Putin as head of government - were "unacceptably slow" and instead of action on promised reforms there had been only "talking and talking" … He [Medvedev] has given tacit approval for his administration to engage in an information war with Putin's apparatus (The Guardian, 3 March 2009);

Mr Medvedev has opted for regular interviews on state television to explain Kremlin policy to the public… For Russians, long used to being lied to by their leaders, it was refreshingly honest. Mr Medvedev has also ordered ministers to go out and explain their work to the public after complaining that the Government was "working very slowly" If Mr Medvedev has really seized on the economic difficulties as an opportunity to foster a more pluralist and tolerant politics, then the crisis may turn out to be good news for Russians after all (Times Online, 16 March 2009);

Some see Mr Medvedev’s new activity as an attempt to pull away from Mr Putin’s influence (The Economist, 19 February 2009);

Mr Medvedev, who was swept into the Kremlin last year with the backing of Mr Putin, has begun to emerge as a more independent player (The Independent, 2 February 2009);

Mr Medvedev may be plotting a more independent course from Vladimir Putin (The Financial Times, 29 January 2009).

Д.А. Медведев обладает одним существенным плюсом в глазах британских СМИ - он никак не связан с силовыми структурами России и не имеет никакого отношения к КПСС и ФСБ:

His status as the first Russian president with no known links to the old Communist party or Soviet secret service was music to western ears (The Guardian, 19 January 2009).