World press on social unrest in Russia (December 31, 2014 - January 3, 2015)

"Anti-Putin Protest Fizzles as Police Sweep Square" is an article which appeared in the New York Times. 

Writing about people protesting the conviction of Alexei Navalny on fraud charges, the author of the article notes: "In the end, Russia’s “white ribbon” opposition, which roared to life in December 2011 hoping to oust Vladimir V. Putin from power, came down to this: not quite two dozen stalwarts huddled all night inside an oversize Christmas tree ornament just outside the Kremlin walls, awaiting inevitable arrest. By morning, it came."

The article calls the "die-hards entrenched in the big glass ornament as a metaphor for the Russian political opposition movement as a whole: shivering and diminished, confident in the rightness of their cause, but also hoping for reinforcements that never arrived," the article reads."
"Russian health-care protests continue despite Putin’s popularity" is another article on protests in Moscow which appeared in the Washington Post.
"While health-care reforms are frequently controversial, they are not often considered to threaten he stability of a regime, particularly in a country where, in July 2014, the Pew Research Center found that 83 percent of the population expressed confidence in Putin to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” the article reads.

"If Putin is so popular, why have these reforms led to such large protests? Despite the reports on the struggles of the Russian health-care system, research has shown that health care – and the welfare state in general – is one area on which post-communist populations have maintained an unwavering and strong consensus since the fall of the Soviet Union. The belief in the government’s responsibility for providing quality health care continues to dominate expectations. The Levada Center’s findings over the past two months further corroborate this claim, showing that, although overall support for protest activities has decreased in recent months, the only protests continuing to receive widespread support from the population are these “doctors’ protests” against health-care reform."
"Russia’s Lost Time" is an article which appeared in the New York Times. 

The article writes that Vladimir Putin's "sense of timing is masterful."
"Many Russian rulers have aspired to be masters of time — including the time they spend at the seat of power. No Russian reign has ever had predefined limits. Most pre-revolutionary rulers died on the throne, or were overthrown and murdered. As hereditary monarchs, the czars’ days in power were limited only by accident, disease or their relatives’ eagerness to take their place. Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 but was later shot by the Bolshevik political police. Soviet leaders, except for Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, also held their posts for life," the article reads.

Commenting on the "trade of places" between Putin in Medvedev in 2012 the author writes: "Unfortunately for their countrymen, the move will keep Russia behind the times and out of step with its immediate neighbors."

"One reason Moscow seems out of sync with most of its neighbors is that Russia could never expect to become a part of the European Union, a prospect that provided a powerful incentive for change in nations like the Czech Republic, Estonia and Poland. These countries were escaping Russia and joining Europe. Russia could not escape itself."

In Russia there is an absence of "independent and economically viable property owners with a stake in maintaining the status quo. In an isolated, economically reeling nation, people who don’t have a stake in the system will turn against it. Once again, attempts to maintain the status quo may lead to an explosion," the author warns.