Quote Of The Day: Not Checkmate Yet Edition

"We now stand somewhere between Belarus and Zimbabwe."

-- Garry Kasparov

Former chess champ Garry Kasparov tied the Russia's government under Vladamir Putin to two other repressive states today, as Putin's enforcers behaved themselves much like the security forces of Belarus' Aleksandr Lukashenko and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

Yeah, yeah, it's rhetoric, but consider this: Even supporters put the number of demonstrators in Moscow today at no more than 2,000, and AP reports "thousands" of police in full-blown riot gear were there to meet them. Hundreds were arrested amidst swinging nightsticks.

A couple thousand demonstrators is no small deal in Russia:

Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin economics adviser who has become a Kremlin critic, pointed out that in 1968 only six people appeared in Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Another demonstration planned for tomorrow in St. Petersburg has been prohibited by Putin's security forces. If even a few hundred show up for that demonstration, be assured: Thousands, if not millions of Russians, will be cheering themon.