Since Sergey Sobyanin became Moscow’s mayor, people and the expert community have a mixed opinion about him. Later, when Sobyanin and his inner circle got used to the situation in Moscow, the process of his interaction with the residents and experts seemed to have been switched to the standard bureaucratic track.

According to Ilya Graschenkov, a Russian political scientist, in 2021, people might observe the large-scale personnel changes affecting almost every power institution in Russia.

“Mikhail Mishstin was nicknamed Khrushch in the Kremlin,” said Valery Solovey referring to his own sources in the presidential administration. “It is a shortcut from Nikita Khrushchev. He has even some facial resemblance.”

“The worst is yet to come,” said economist Mikhail Khazin. “The sabotage of Putin's instructions that we observed in spring has every chance to occur again. Moreover, if there is the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding restrictions, its scale is likely to be even more enormous.”

As it turned out, protesters in Khabarovsk, the city in far eastern Russia, have started collecting signatures under a petition for President Vladimir Putin’s resignation and for holding a new presidential election. The initiators of the motion call the loss of trust in the Russian President as the official reason for their demand.

The conflict between the shareholders of Petropavlovsk PLC, a London-based gold mining company with operations in Russia, is turning into a banal corporate raid on assets. It is noteworthy that situation is unfolding not somewhere in the taiga, but in the Russian capital. On August 26, Maxim Meshcheryakov, acting CEO of the company, accompanied by tough guys broke into the office of AO Pokrovsky Rudnik, a subsidiary company of Petropavlovsk PLC.

The “сarbon tax,” the introduction of which is scheduled as early as 2021 and 2022, might put Russian companies working for export into losses in the amount of 33 to 50 bln euros in the period up to 2030.

Well-informed sources indicate that motivational fees might be introduced in the future for people who will tip the information off to the Federal Tax Service about pensioners who somehow evade paying taxes.

Moreover, according to Mikhail Delyagin, a Russian economist and head of the Institute for Globalization Problems, at the beginning of this year Mikhail Mishustin who previously served as Director of the Federal Taxation Service from 2010 to 2020, was appointed Prime Minister for “legalizing” incomes of the Russians.

“However, at present, the problem is that the government has to somehow liquidate a serious budget deficit which might reach 5 trln rubles ($160.92 mln) by the end of the year,” said Ruslan Greenberg, an economist and scientific advisor at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “As it seems to me, this gap in the budget is likely to be filled by devaluation of the national currency.”

Mikhail Khazin, a Russian economist, believes that Vladimir Putin has recently found himself in much the position that Alexander Lukashenko, his Belarusian counterpart, got into a few weeks before the presidential election.

According to political analyst Alexey Martynov, if the new authorities of Belarus raise the possibility of withdrawing of the country from the Collective Security Treaty Organization and rejecting the military security guarantees from Moscow under pressure from Western partner countries, this might lead to a military coup in Belarus.

“Since this prototype [vaccine] hasn’t passed the necessary clinical investigation, it might carry risks,” said Yevgeny Fyodorov, a State Duma deputy and Russian politician. “Recently, Russia has announced that it had invented a vaccine for COVID-19. But this is only its prototype that has not passed all the clinical trials yet.”

The subject of charity is very popular in Russia. Yes, it really exists, but for some reason not very evidently especially in the sector of children's healthcare, support for orphans and disabled children and assistance to orphanages and hospitals. This conclusion can be made after watching Russian TV news programs where requests for help are voiced very often.

Valery Solovey, a political scientist and doctor of historical sciences, has given more accurate data on the negotiation process. He said Vladimir Putin had persuaded Alexander Lukashenko to hold a new election without Lukashenko running for the office this time.