“Russia has to decentralize political and economic control”

Medvedev understands that we need the middle class, we need civil society, we need entrepreneurs in order to turn the country around, says Andrey Kortunov, political analyst from the New Eurasia Foundation.

“However, the problem is that there is a need to decentralize political and economic control in order to do it. This is very difficult because the country got used to the paternalistic way of managing its affairs,” he added.

The analyst was commenting on Dmitry Medvedev’s televised interview where the president summarized the results of the year and spoke about changes needed in the country.