Putin allies urge him to talk to opponents

The Washington Post reports that Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has called Putin to engage in dialogue with opposition protesters, while former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has called for the head of Russia's election commission to resign before the March 2012 presidential election.

Kirill said in a televised interview that "If demonstrations ahead of the 1917 revolution had ended in the expression of peaceful protests and had not led to a bloody revolution and a fratricidal war, Russia would have had a more than 300 million population and would have challenged or maybe even surpassed the United States from the point of view of economic development. ... Back then, we failed to preserve the balance and wisdom. We destroyed our country. Why did it happen? Because people’s protests, often fair, are very skillfully exploited by power-seeking political forces."

Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/putin-allies-urge-him-to-talk-to-opponents/2012/01/07/gIQAS2GEhP_story.html