Sergei Mironov should have known better than to try exercising his free speech muscle.  Mironov, leader of pro-Kremlin party A Just Russia, has infuriated rival pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, by casually suggesting that it would be old-fashioned of him to agree with everything that Vladimir Putin’s party gets up to (this is, by the way, the same Mironov who was all for extending the presidential term back in 2008 – it’s not as if he is broadly anti-Putin). 

Instead of arguing the finer points of Putin’s economic policies, United Russia deputies have responded to the news variously, accusing Mironov of suffering a ‘personal moral crisis‘, lying, and disrespecting the prime minister.  In the latest developments, Duma deputy Andrei Isayev accused Mironov of ‘trying to run from the ship like a rat‘.  A Just Russia’s response?  Isayev should ‘drink less‘. 

RFE/RL suggests that Mironov’s comments signal that his party ‘has begun acting slighty less like a fake opposition party and slightly more like the real thing‘.