New microchips will help locate the deer with previously unheard of precision and track it during the long winter nights”. When I switched on the television on Tuesday I could hardly believe my eyes. The rest of the world was watching scenes of riot police and pro-government youth activists attacking pro-democracy demonstrators in Moscow. The name of Triumphalnya Square, where the rally was taking place, was topping Twitter trends. But the main story on state-owned “Rossiya 24”, Russia’s only 24-hour TV channel, was the microchipping of polar deer. It was a testament to the way Russia’s leadership is handling the first real political crisis of the Putin era.

Clumsy attempts to deny or hush up unpleasant reality, veiled threats mixed with vague promises of concessions, diatribes against perceived foreign interference – it all recalls Milosevic’s Belgrade in 2000. The question on everyone’s mind is: “Are we seeing the ‘Russian Spring’ arriving, against all odds, in winter?” My answer is: yes – but it might well have a pattern different from the Arab revolutions. I expect it to be more of a tug of war than a blitz.

Vladimir Putin still has formidable financial resources, and the police has not yet hesitated to tackle the protesters roughly. The opposition is still split between the so-called “systemic” parties, to be represented in parliament, and the “non-systemic” groupings that are driving the street protests. The population, though increasingly restless, wants the system to improve, not another revolution. All this favours the Kremlin. However, other factors are eroding the regime’s ability to respond to the situation coherently.