Congratulations, Mr. Putin!

"We showed that no one and nothing can tell us what to do. We were able to save ourselves from political provocations that have just one aim: to overturn the Russian state and usurp power. Such attempts will not succeed on our land. They won't succeed!"

The one certain way to ensure that people will draw together in a bond of mutual support is to infuse them with the idea - true or not - that their security and their future is threatened by the harmful interference of foreign entities. Persuade them that foreign elements have sinister motivations for interfering in the sovereign affairs of their country and people will respond, willingly manipulated.

The people - certainly the people of the hinterlands - have spoken loud and clear. A majority for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He will now have his coveted third term as President of Russia. And the current president will return to the post he surrendered to his puppet-master. Russia is in very good economic shape, and this is critical to Mr. Putin's rousing re-election victory.

He has, for the most part, led the country ably, while concomitantly enriching himself and his supporters quite enviably. Russia's oil and gas abundance has raised its future prospects and along with them, has advantaged hugely a great many Russians. Not necessarily fulsomely those who voted for him, and there's the odd little conundrum for those who did benefit did not vote for him.

Dmitry Medvedev has reason for complacency, he is Vladimir Putin's man. There were some optics now and again when he spoke in terms contradictory - or they seemed to appear as such - of Vladimir Putin, but this was effective in portraying him as his own man, another strong character whom Russians could rely upon. Not that strong that he could compete with the ultimate strongman, however, and not in fact, a strongman at all, but a kept man.

Those alleged thousands of instances of vote-rigging and electoral malpractise that Vladimir Putin's opponents claim rendered the contest illegitimate will do nothing whatever to alter the outcome. There was a convincing enough lead in the polls, and a more than respectable advantage to the man who brought Russia into prosperity and order, in his majority vote.

When the Putin dissenters manage to organize themselves fully into a competitive party that will have resonance with those Russians living outside Moscow and St.Petersburg, they may themselves gain the opportunity to finally unseat Mr. Putin, in the next election, six years hence, forestalling him from extending his presidential throne to yet another term.

They have a lot of work ahead of them if they're sufficiently committed, and if there are enough of them left after some have left in disgust, to emigrate elsewhere where other opportunities beckon, outside Russia.