Mikhail Gorbachev warns that Russia is in danger of backsliding into the dark days of the Soviet Union in a critical op-ed piece that seems aimed directly at Vladimir Putin.

The country's parliament is no better than a rubber stamp, its courts lack independence, and there's still no real party system. "There is a growing feeling that the government is afraid of civil society and would like to control everything," Gorbachev writes on the 25th anniversary of his perestroika reforms.

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