Putin's Shame: "Russia Is Not Free"

On the eve of becoming president of the G8 nations, Russia's Vladmir Putin suffered the resignation of his chief economic advisor -- and economic critic -- Andrei Illarionov.

The Financial News reports Illarionov's parting statement:

“It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free,” Mr Illarionov said yesterday, saying Russia still qualified for that description when Mr Putin came to power six years ago. “It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic.

“I did not sign a contract with such a state, and therefore it is absolutely impossible to remain in this post,” he said.

Illarionov says Russia is moving towards a new governance model, corporatism, in which large corporations are controlled by the state via government representatives on their boards. Such boards answer to the government, not the economy -- typical of Putin's drift back towards a Soviet-like model.