EVEN BJ AND THE BEAR ARE A MATCH FOR PUTIN:

The root of their anger is a new road toll system called Platon (derived from the Russian "Pay-per-ton"), which will levy tolls on trucks weighing over 12 tons, raising hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The truckers complain that the new tolls will bankrupt them. They are also angry that the company managing the system is owned by the son of one of President Vladimir Putin's oldest friends. The Kremlin denies nepotism played a role.

Economic discontent among average Russians is of deep concern to the Kremlin, which counts blue-collar workers among its political base. Putin devoted considerable time in a nationally televised address on Thursday to highlight the bright spots in Russia's battered economy and encouraged officials to "treat civil society and business as equal partners."

"These are the beginnings of the political consequences of the economic crisis, and that is going to be the topic of 2016," said Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist and a senior lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. "The truckers are something like the foam on the waves signifying the coming storm."

Moscow's massive anti-Putin protests sparked by rigged elections four years ago were overtly political, while the truckers at the Ikea on Friday said their demonstration was "economic in nature" and not directed against Putin.

But the source of anger is similar in both cases, Schulmann said.

"In fact, these protests are driven by the same thing: the discrepancy between society's expectations and the decisions made by the government," she said. "There is no channel for feedback."

Tweet   @brothersjudd