The Daily Telegraph continues its reporting on the Belkovsky rumor over Vladimir Putin’s secret fortune, this time featuring some terrific quotes from Andrei Illarionov: Illarionov, president of the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis and a fellow of the Washington-based Cato Institute, claimed that the circle around Putin and his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, were increasingly adopting “the aggression of the street rabble” to stay in power. He cited flawed elections and alleged “velvet re-privatisation” – or forcing down the value of ex-state assets before putting them into the hands of loyalists – as examples of this “aggression” linked to a “moral decline” among the ruling elite. The state’s institutions have become the tools of Putin’s circle, he claimed. “At the moment for many of the people who are in power, there is almost no other means left to them but to escalate violence and aggression in order to remain in power.