Gobachev: Putin Should Resign

As massive protests sweep Russia, former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev says that Prime Minister Vladamir Putin should resign.

Gorbachev, 80, on Dec. 24 said Putin, 59, had been in power for too long after two terms as president and one as prime minister. “There shouldn’t be a monopoly of power, we don’t need any czars,” he told Ekho Moskvy radio. Putin announced in September that he would seek to return to the Kremlin in March 4 presidential elections, pushing aside his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev. He is confronting the biggest demonstrations of his 12 years in power over alleged election fraud in Dec. 4 parliamentary polls.

Putin's spokesman sniped back: "The former leader of a vast nation, who presided over its collapse, is calling on a person to step down who managed to save Russia from the same fate."