One of the stranger parentheses in President Medevev’s ‘disappointing’ press conference yesterday was his sudden announcement that Sergei Mironov, the head of the Federation Council and founder of pro-Kremlin opposition party a Just Russia has been dismissed.  This titbit may in fact have been the closest to anything the President was willing to divulge about the upcoming elections, which remain a matter of whispers and nudges.  Over to Brian Whitmore to decrypt the latest development:

Back in 2009, Mironov supported a plan, floated by Deputy Kremlin Chief of Staff Vladislav Surkov and hotly opposed by United Russia, to establish a tightly controlled multi-party system similar to the ones that existed in some Soviet satellites like Communist-era Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, a leading member of United Russia, vocally fought the idea — which would reduce the party’s clout — and it seemed to lose traction.