MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's paramount leader, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, hinted on Monday he would return to the presidency in 2012 for six more years and said democracy protesters marching without permission deserved to be beaten.
Asked by the Kommersant daily newspaper in an interview whether Russia's 2012 presidential election did not worry him because he had already decided it, Putin replied:
"No, it interests me like...I wanted to say like everyone, but in fact more than everyone else. But I don't want to make a fetish out of it."
Putin ruled as president from 2000 to 2008 before handing the presidency to his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, in order to observe a law banning a third consecutive term.
However Putin will be free to run again in 2012 for a newly extended term of six years.
