‘An ineffective economy, semi-Soviet social sphere, weak democracy, negative demographic trends and an unstable Caucasus. These are very big problems even for a state like Russia’.  Mikhael Gorbachev?  Joe Biden?  None of the above: President Medvedev has taken his turn to launch an attack upon the ailments of Russia.  The President also highlighted corruption as a principal problem for the state’s development in the article entitled ‘Russia, Forward!‘ published on the Gazeta-Ru website.  According to the Telegraph, the unusually frank attack ‘was one of Mr Medvedev’s boldest attempts yet to step out of Mr Putin’s shadow’, or perhaps an attempt to play down a rather unlibertarian hawkishness which has been manifest in recent verbal attacks on Ukraine and Georgia.