President Vladimir Putin has accused foreign governments of sponsoring his opponents in next month's election to weaken Russia and carry out "dirty tricks".
Mr Putin warned that victory for his United Russia party in the December 2nd parliamentary election was the only guarantee that the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s would not return.
"Unfortunately there are still those people in our country who still slink through foreign embassies . . . who count on the support of foreign funds and governments but not the support of their own people," Mr Putin told a pro-Kremlin rally yesterday.
These political enemies, he added, wanted to divide Russia. "They need a weak and feeble state. They need a disorganised and disoriented society, a split society, so that they can carry out their dirty tricks behind its back."
In his harshest public attack on opposition parties to date, Mr Putin said his political enemies had "learned a bit from Western specialists, did a bit of training in neighbouring republics and will now come to try to carry out provocations".
The Kremlin has constantly evoked the spectre of pro-Western mass protests, like those that ushered in new governments in neighbouring Georgia and Ukraine, as a fate to be avoided.