Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday ordered election officials to check reports of vote fixing following a national protest over an election that handed a disputed victory to the ruling party.

Mr Medvedev said he flatly disagreed with the idea of staging fresh elections but had already issued instructions for a closer look at the reports of rampant ballot stuffing and cases of officials fixing the vote count.

“I disagree with the slogans and declarations made at the meetings,” the tech-savvy Medvedev wrote in his Facebook account.

“Nevertheless, I have issued instructions to check all polling station reports about (failure) to follow election laws,” Mr Medvedev wrote.

Saturday’s historic demonstrations near the Kremlin saw more than 50,000 people deride the outcome of December 4 elections that were widely seen as a litmus test for Vladimir Putin’s planned return to the presidency next year.

The protests were the largest to hit the Russian capital since the tumultuous 1990s and levelled some of the most intense political pressure at Mr Putin since he first rose to the presidency in 2000.

The former KGB agent currently serves as Prime Minister after making Mr Medvedev his hand-picked presidential successor in 2008 and intends to return to the Kremlin for up to 12 more years in March elections that he appears destined to win.

But scenes similar to those witnessed Saturday in Moscow were also replayed on a smaller scale across the industrial hubs of Siberia and the Urals – a sign that Putin’s path back may be more fraught than it first appeared.

Mr Putin stayed out of the limelight over the weekend while his spokesman issued a carefullyworded statement that sounded a cautiously conciliatory note.

“We respect the point of view of the protesters. We are hearing what is being said and we will continue to listen to them,” Mr Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in the overnight statement.

Mr Medvedev’s own comments suggest the two leaders – seen as close allies despite the President’s more liberal reputation – are keen to quickly stamp out the most serious political flare-up of Mr Putin’s 12-year rule.

But Mr Medvedev fell far short of satisfying the opposition’s main demand to stage new elections.

Former cabinet minister turned Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov called Medvedev’s Facebook message “a mockery”.

“These are worthless instructions ... that are not going to calm anyone down,” Mr Nemtsov told Moscow Echo radio.

Rally organisers have already threatened to return to the same Moscow square en masse on December 24 and possibly to hold smaller rallies at various locations before then.

Yet analysts point to a series of small but significant changes in state policy in the past few days that hint at serious official concern about the public discontent.

One of Saturday’s biggest surprises came in the evening when state TV – scorned by the internet community for its ban on coverage of post-election unrest – took the unusual step of leading its news broadcasts with rallies.

A Kremlin source told the popular gazeta.ru news site that the decision to run the mainly-balanced reports was taken by Mr Medvedev himself.