On the eve of a third major anti-government demonstration, a trusted aide to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said that Russian intelligence services �two or three years ago� predicted the recent outbreak of street protests in Moscow, suggesting that a blueprint for political unrest had been drawn up in foreign capitals.

The aide, Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin�s spokesman, said in an interview on Thursday that the authorities saw the protests as evidence of growing demands for political participation, especially among the urban middle class, and would introduce �significant changes in terms of liberalizing and modernizing our political system.�

But he also reiterated Mr. Putin�s earlier claim that the United States has played an important role by sending money �to provoke the situation.� He said that intelligence services had long warned that protests were planned, using information gathered �from all over the world.�

�Listen, we knew two or three years in advance that the next day, after parliamentary elections, we will have a scandal and we will have people going out and saying �Listen, guys, these elections are not legitimate, because there are hundreds of violations and they have stolen our voices,� � Mr. Peskov said. �We knew this in 2010. We knew that it would happen.�

�And we know now that on the fifth of March we will have the same scenario,� Mr. Peskov added.

He said that the authorities knew of Web sites prepared to publicize election violations, including fabricated ones, after the March 4 presidential elections, and that they have the wording of the statement that will be issued by election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

�It�s so ridiculously predictable,� he said.

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