Russia’s former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, who declared his readiness to mediate in negotiations with the authorities of the opposition, said that Vladimir Putin feel suspicious about those people, who call themselves leaders of protesters.

“There’s a great distrust [from Putin] to the group, which tries to present itself as a voice of protesters’ interests,” Kudrin said in an interview for Kommersant TV.

The former finance minister, who lost his job last September over disagreement with President Dmitry Medvedev on key issues, appeared at a demonstration on December 24 against alleged vote-rigging in parliamentary elections but was booed by some protesters.

Kudrin also said that Putin “needs to think outside of the box, to find leaders of this group [the protesters] and talk to them.”

Kudrin said that the government is now in a precarious situation and is not quite ready to comprehend what is happening.

“Not only electoral fraud, but a protest against society, resentment, all of these was the trigger,” he added.

At the same time Kudrin said that for the first time he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin disagree on the position of the developing situation in the country.

“Putin, he is a very pragmatic person, he has a very strong political instincts. Now it’s the first time when we have a very different position on socio-political issues,” Kudrin said, noting that they already had different positions on economic issues before.

Tens of thousands of people rallied in Moscow and other cities on December 24, Russia’s largest protests in decades, to demand a rerun of the parliamentary vote. Demonstrators have been calling for fresh polls over alleged vote fraud in favor of the ruling United Russia party, led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.