MOSCOW — On the eve of a third major anti-government demonstration, a trusted aide to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said that Russian intelligence services “two or three years ago” reported that there were plans for the outbreak of street protests in Moscow, implying that a blueprint for political unrest was drawn up in Washington.
The aide, Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, said in an interview on Thursday that the authorities saw the protests as evidence of growing demands for political participation, especially among the urban middle class, and would introduce “significant changes in terms of liberalizing and modernizing our political system.”
But he also reiterated Mr. Putin’s earlier claim that the United States has played an important role by sending money “to provoke the situation.” He said that Russian intelligence services had long warned that protests were planned, using information gathered from various countries.
Full story: Putin Aide Says Foreign Hands Are Behind Protests