Can we please get something clear here? There are two ongoing political narratives in Russia today. The first, a narrative put forward by the likes of Steinmeier, Schröder, Gadhafi, Sarkozy and other United Russia apologists, talks about the only slightly flawed elections and Russia’s positive move toward democracy. The second, a narrative which may be more inconvenient to some, tells the true story of vicious clan infighting, and the incredible emergence of these disputes into the public sphere. It is amazing, in my view, that these two competing narratives seem to exist independently, failing to make a notable impact on their respective assumptions. As the news came out today that over the weekend the Prosecutor General’s Office ordered a probe against its very own Investigative Committee, signaling virtual civil war among the most powerful figures in the Kremlin, how on earth are so many governments and corporations able to applaud the elections process and praise “stability” in Russia with a straight face? Why the impairment of reason?