There’s an interesting one in the FT by Charles Clover (is this guy new?) taking a look at Dmitry Medvedev’s successful press conference in Gagarin, where he continues to work to establish his own public persona outside that of Vladimir Putin – though that seems doubtful if he continues to copy the former president’s oratorical style:

Mr Medvedev has been fighting for the limelight since assuming his post in May, and his trip to Gagarin was the latest and the loudest in a series of carefully orchestrated media events designed to establish him as an independent political figure. It is widely assumed that while Mr Medvedev has the title of president, real power continues to lie with his close friend Vladimir Putin, who stepped down as president to become prime minister earlier this year. (…) To add weight to his normally soft-spoken persona, Mr Medvedev has recently begun mimicking Mr Putin’s tough guy television style, lacing his official-sounding pronouncements with slang and street jargon. There was also plenty of finger jabbing, fist clenching and table slamming as he ran a carefully staged and nationally televised meeting in Gagarin between the town’s small business owners and a contrite looking group of government officials – driven in from Moscow especially for the purpose of being public whipping boys – as Mr Medvedev announced a new plan to fight official corruption. “Who is biting you?” he asked the small businessmen, using the slang term for bribe-taking, in a meeting designed to showcase his anti-corruption measures. “Are the law-enforcement institutions up to their old naughty tricks?” he asked. (…)