When President Bush was in Russia earlier this year they had a black tent set up in the middle of the room for our State Department personnel to conduct business away from the secret cameras in the room. When they were not working in the tent they were working inside the Presidential limousine.
They had a floating balloon right outside his quarters to monitor everything our President was doing and who he talked to.... everything has gone backwards in Russia under Putin.
The Russians wouldn't get any useful information from Bush and his people by using a visible surveillance device, such as a floating balloon. That's much too obvious and the secret service would see it immediately. More likely, the balloon had mini-cameras attached to it that were keeping an eye on the entire area for anyone trying to do any harm to Bush.
Although journalistic freedom has certainly declined under Putin, I would say that overall Russia has moved way forward economically under Putin and he's done well at the very difficult job of stabilizing the post-soviet Russia.