Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

After more than three weeks of public protests over fraud allegations in Russia's parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he will not accede to one of the principal demands of demonstrators. There will be no revote, he said Tuesday in televised remarks. "The elections are over … and the Duma [the parliament's lower house] is functioning," Putin declared. "All talks about any revision [of the election results] are impossible. " Putin, who is seeking a return to the presidency in March elections, also lashed out at leaders of the ongoing protests, saying they "display their weakness by resorting to insults.

As tens of thousands of supporters chanted his name at a wintry outdoor rally, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared victory in the Russian presidential election. But opponents of Putin promised to respond with their own mass rallies beginning Monday to highlight vote fraud allegations and ongoing government corruption. Election officials said Sunday that the prime minister held nearly 65% of the vote with almost two-thirds counted. Putin, who was president before becoming premier in 2008, led four rivals including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, who had 17%, according to the preliminary tabulations of Russia's Central Election Commission.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced Saturday what many had long suspected: that he will run for president in the spring in the expectation of extending his grip on Russian politics for an additional six years — and perhaps longer. The announcement at a congress of the ruling United Russia party ended months of speculation about maneuvering inside the Kremlin by Putin and his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, who became president in 2008 when Putin left the office because of term limits.

  It was not just another day on Alexei Burkov's little dairy farm west of Moscow. In a country where political campaigns are conducted with scripted television events and carefully orchestrated public appearances, a presidential candidate was coming to share a hearty winter lunch of homemade dumplings, pork chops, herb-seasoned cheeses and a raspberry drink. To the delight of half a dozen photographers, Mikhail Prokhorov, the billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets NBA basketball team, visited Burkov's barn and awkwardly touched the horn of one of his cows.

From the smoke of the wildfires engulfing the Moscow region and the embarrassment of this summer's spy scandal, Vladimir Putin is reemerging as Russia's most powerful man and, experts say, a candidate to reclaim the presidency a little more than a year and a half from now. For more than two years since term limits forced him to give up office and take the prime minister's job instead, Putin and his protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, have seemed...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted a bill to extend Russia's presidential term from four years to six. If approved, the legislation means that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's predecessor, would be eligible for 12 more years in a second presidential stint. Putin was constitutionally barred from seeking a third straight term as president.

Parliament's upper house unanimously approved extending Russian presidential terms, a constitutional amendment that has fueled speculation Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will return as head of state. The Federation Council endorsed a six-year term for future presidents, up from four. President Dmitry Medvedev, who proposed the changes, will sign the bill into law. Putin, president for eight years until May, has said he favors the change.

An election official said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party candidate had won the mayoral vote in the resort of Sochi, host to the 2014 Winter Olympics. An opposition candidate called the vote a fraud. Sochi Election Commission Chairman Yuri Rykov said a count of ballots from four-fifths of the city's electoral districts gave acting Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov more than 76%. Pakhomov was nominated by Putin's United Russia party. Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov accused authorities of pressuring vulnerable state workers to vote for Pakhomov in early balloting before election day.

Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted overwhelmingly to lengthen the presidential term from four years to six, an action that opponents called a step toward Prime Minister Vladimir Putin returning to the office. The constitutional amendment faces two more votes but appears certain to be enacted. Political analysts and Kremlin foes predict that President Dmitry Medvedev could step down as early as next year, making Putin the acting president and triggering elections in which Putin would run and probably win.

In a short but fiery presidential campaign speech, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday called on voters to prepare for battle to protect the country's future. Government opponents and foreign influences are threatening to weaken Russia, Putin told tens of thousands of people at a rally in Moscow held on Defender of the Fatherland Day, a national holiday known as Red Army Day during the Soviet era. "We won't allow anybody to interfere with our internal affairs and we won't allow anybody to impose his will on us because we have a will of our own!"

After more than three weeks of public protests over fraud allegations in Russia's parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he will not accede to one of the principal demands of demonstrators. There will be no revote, he said Tuesday in televised remarks. "The elections are over … and the Duma [the parliament's lower house] is functioning," Putin declared. "All talks about any revision [of the election results] are impossible. " Putin, who is seeking a return to the presidency in March elections, also lashed out at leaders of the ongoing protests, saying they "display their weakness by resorting to insults.

By positioning himself to regain the presidency next year and perhaps hold the job well into the next decade, analysts say, Vladimir Putin is placing himself above what many Russians expect to be a dirty campaign for parliament this fall and tough economic reforms to follow. His protege, current President Dmitry Medvedev, not so much. Their announcement at a congress of the ruling United Russia party that the two leaders would switch positions allows Putin to protect his image as a populist and a strong leader.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced Saturday what many had long suspected: that he will run for president in the spring in the expectation of extending his grip on Russian politics for an additional six years — and perhaps longer. The announcement at a congress of the ruling United Russia party ended months of speculation about maneuvering inside the Kremlin by Putin and his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, who became president in 2008 when Putin left the office because of term limits.

The investigation of last month's suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport in which 36 people were killed and dozens more injured has exposed growing tensions between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. During a Kremlin meeting Thursday with law enforcement officials in charge of the investigation, a visibly irritated Medvedev forcefully contradicted a statement by Putin a day earlier by saying that the case was not solved and that no government official should say anything to the contrary.

An imprisoned business tycoon whose legal troubles have come to symbolize the limits of political freedom in Vladimir Putin's Russia was found guilty Monday of stealing oil from his own company and is likely to face another decade behind bars. Inside a Moscow courtroom, Judge Viktor Danilkin began reading the lengthy verdict against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partner, Platon Lebedev, in a rapid, almost inaudible monotone, not even pausing to look up. On the snowy street outside, several hundred supporters held portraits of the 47-year-old Khodorkovsky and demanded that he be freed.

The Obama administration has rolled out all the arguments in its attempt to persuade Republican senators to vote for ratification of its pending nuclear arms control treaty with Russia: It's a good treaty; it's a modest treaty; it would enable the United States to resume inspecting Russian arsenals; it's a necessary step toward more important arms pacts in the future. But as conservative senators have dug in their heels, administration officials have shifted to ominous mode, painting a dire picture of the consequences if New START, as the treaty is called, is not ratified: Nuclear security will be set back; the word of the United States will be devalued; Russians will question whether their newly improved relationship with the West is worthwhile; Russia's willingness to cooperate on other issues, such as Iran and North Korea, will be weakened.

Calling his host "a great visionary," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger heaped praise Monday on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and urged new economic partnerships with Soviet, er, Russian, businessmen during a visit to a western suburb of Moscow that is slated to become a Silicon Valley-style innovation hub. With 23 potential American investors in tow, Schwarzenegger is visiting Moscow at the invitation of Medvedev, who toured the United States in...