This is clear, and depressing: Russia today has little or no claim to be a democracy, not even the shabby, inadvertent kind of democracy it was becoming under Mr Yeltsin.

• 这点很清楚，而且也很让人沮丧：今天的俄罗斯鲜有宣称或者干脆不宣称自己是民主国家，即便是在叶利钦时期那种粗糙的、“无心插柳柳成荫”式的民主。