Stephen Holmes writes in today’s Guardian about the predicament facing protesters in Russia, who came out in their thousands last night to share their views on the re-election of Vladimir Putin to the presidency.

The absence of any plausible succession formula is the central flaw in Putin’s current pseudo-state. From the viewpoint of Russia’s voters, it confirms the feeling that Russia is a country without a future, or at least is a country in which the future has no reliable institutional basis, but is constructed wholly upon the unpredictable survival and physical health of a single mortal man.