Dimitri Medvedev

Russia’s president — that would be the guy who isn’t Putin — gave a truly remarkable speech to the country’s parliament this week, decrying the country’s decline, its “humiliating” reliance on natural resources, its sham democracy, its reliance on the Soviet legacy, its failure to make the transition to a knowledge economy. Vlad Putin squirmed in the front row as his nominal boss essentially called him a failure.