This fascinates me

Look at this man.

Of course you recognise him, he's Vladimir Putin, the Russian President.
This man, this country, fascinates me.
Here is a man who sacks his cabinet and installs an unknown. Constitutionally he can't stand for a third consecutive term and the new PM, Viktor Zubkov, is expected to play Patsy - being controlled by Putin until power can be handed back to the former KGB man.
Yet another minister had to resign from cabinet completely because he was Zubkov's son-in-law and it constituted a conflict of interest.
To all intents and purposes the FSB (the KGB by any other name is still the KGB) is now running Russia. Journalists and former KGB operatives are being assassinated all over the place. The hard-won democracy is being slowly crushed under an all-seeing regime with amazing spies and tentacles, yet the Russian people love the man. They love the way he's running things.
I've taken to reading the news wires every day for the latest on anything Russian. Fascinates me. Absolutely fascinates me.