If Europe and the West want to understand what is happening in Russia, they should send observers not to the polling stations, but to Moscow's Basmanny Court, where the Constitution and rule of law are being unraveled on a daily basis.
Here, and not in any electoral race, is where the battle over the presidential succession is playing itself out. The contenders are a group of former KGB officers known as the siloviki, from the Russian word for strong.
Highlights from the battles between these warring factions include murders of politically connected figures and a spate of arrests of public officials on allegations of corruption - arrests instigated by members of one clan or another. The result is a group of jailed hostages from each of the silovik clans to be used as pawns in the power struggles.
