THE leading Kremlin spin-doctor rebuffed Western critics yesterday with a robust defence of President Putin’s democratic credentials in the run-up to the G8 summit in St Petersburg.

Vladislav Surkov, in an unprecedented meeting with foreign reporters, dismissed charges that Russia should not be a member, let alone the president, of the G8 because of its recent moves to curb democracy. Mr Surkov, widely regarded as Russia’s second most powerful man, rejected the term “managed democracy”, which is often used to describe the highly centralised, and often authoritarian, political system that he has crafted as deputy head of the administration.

“Our democratic model is called ‘sovereign democracy’,” said Mr Surkov, a college dropout and PR expert, who joined the Kremlin in 1998 after spending a decade working for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon, who is serving a prison sentence. “While building an open society, we do not forget that we are a free nation,” he said, “and we want to be a free nation among other free nations and co-operate with them according to just rules without being governed from outside.

“As far as a possible emerging national ideology are concerned, I think they are unlikely to differ drastically from the common European values.”

Mr Surkov’s sudden emergence into the spotlight is part of a Kremlin campaign to buff its image before the G8 summit, with the help of Ketchum, an American public relations company. It provided a rare insight into the ideology behind the Kremlin’s drive to reassert central control over parliament, national media and strategic industries since Mr Putin took office in 2000. Mr Surkov, 41, has been at the centre of that campaign, masterminding the creation of the United Russia party, which came from nowhere to win a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in 2003.

An amateur rock musician, he oversaw the founding of a youth movement, Moving Together, to try to mobilise young people to support Mr Putin. He also supervised the formation of a more radical youth movement, Nashi (Ours), last year to offset the threat of a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution in Russia.

Critics blame him for creating an authoritarian state in which the Kremlin’s power is unchecked by a parliament dominated by United Russia, whose only platform is support for the President. Some prominent figures have called for Western leaders to boycott the G8 summit.

Mr Surkov said that the West was applying double standards to Russia, while seeking unfettered access to its vast energy reserves. “Sometimes, words and thoughts [in the West] do not coincide,” he said. “For example, they talk to us about democracy while thinking about our hydrocarbons.”

There was no truth, he said, in accusations that Mr Putin was creating a new generation of oligarchs by handing control of key industries to Kremlin officials. “This is normal,” he said. “These people are here today, gone tomorrow. They serve; they are not owners. So they cannot pose any political threat.

“We don’t believe we were defeated in the Cold War. We think we defeated our own totalitarian regime. It was Moscow that democratised this gigantic space, which is now being revitalised.”

UNDER FIRE

“It is important that the G7 heads of state make clear that Russia’s actions are inconsistent with G8 democratic norms”

Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman and Representatives Tom Lantos and David Dreier in a letter to G8 leaders

“[Putin] has systematically dismantled Russian democracy and that fact in some ways makes a mockery of the G8”

Hugh Barnes, author of the Foreign Policy Centre’s report on Russia

“Russia should be treated and judged as a normal democratic country. The implementation of our Constitution is unacceptable, dangerous, wrong. For politicians of other countries, no more polite language should be found to express this idea”

Mikhail Kasyanov, former Russian Prime Minister and opposition presidential candidate

“We must use the levers we have at our disposal to make clear that the route Russia seems to be going at the present is the wrong one”

Michael Moore, foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats

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