Ever come across something so brilliant you wish you had thought of it yourself? Well that's what Seth Hettena has just put together, via sourcing from Vedomosti: an aggregation of the preferred timepieces worn by high-level Russian officialdom as a possible proxy for corruption. There are several questions raised from this little survey, not the least of which is: to those of you contending that Igor Sechin is the real master string-puller, I ask you, have you considered Moscow's Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin? More importantly, could any of these men hold it together under the mind-bending microscope of Vesper Lynd?

A partial list of who prefers which wristwatch:

Vladimir Putin: Blancpain, Leman Aqualung Grande Date, $10,500

Dmitry Medvedev: Breguet, Classique Moon

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Tracing the policy movements of Presidential power-handler Vladislav Surkov is rather like witnessing a three-point turn in a dark alley - as a piece in the Power Vertical points out today.  Whilst transparency is the last thing once can expect from the Kremlin's shadowy ideologue, his moves of late are dizzying analysts.  Brian Whitmore identifies some of Surkov's recent twists - from the motives for his alleged involvement in the Duma walkout - to the matter of his oscillating stance on liberalizing political structures to aid economic development.Whitmore quotes from a Stratfor.com analysis, which suggests that Surkov's maneuvring is underpinned by a familiar motive: power rivalry.  In a recently published four-part series titled "The Kremlin Wars," Stratfor.com offers up one possible answer.According to Stratfor, the Kremlin is divided into two roughly ...

In attempting to get somewhat closer to understanding what on earth could possibly be going on inside the head of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, Europe's last dictator, RFE/RL interviews two analysts, Uladzimir Padhol and Leonid Radzikhovsky, and produces a very interesting discussion.  RFE/RL: Lukashenka seems to enjoy acting as though he is bringing his interviewers in on a big secret -- real or imagined. "Did you know that it was thanks to me that there was no blockade of Abkhazia under [former Georgian President Eduard] Shevardnadze?" "Did you know that Russian [Finance] Minister Aleksei Kudrin's dire forecast about the Belarusian economy was meant to create panic?" Is this a tactic, or a philosophy? Padhol: This is not only a philosophy but a self-preservation instinct as a politician. Being a supra-authoritarian dictator, he is constantly making mistakes in the course of governing. ...