When he ordered a halt to construction of controversial highway through a forest in a Moscow suburb in August, President Dmitry Medvedev was seen by activists as taking a rare stand—turning a local environmental dispute into a national test of his pledges to make Russia's political system more responsive to its people.

On Tuesday, after completing the additional review Mr. Medvedev ordered, the government approved plans to restart the project along the original route. The decision evoked howls from environmental and community activists, who said it fueled growing doubts that Mr. Medvedev's liberal rhetoric is anything more than just talk.

"If he were a strong president, he would have taken a different decision," said Yaroslav Nikitenko, a leader of the For Khimki Forest group, whose protests helped draw national attention to the opposition to the road project. "It was a litmus test of how the authorities relate to the people."

Mr. Medvedev's August decision to suspend the construction for additional public review had left opponents of the road elated, even though it didn't change the route. The move seemed to put him at odds with powerful officials who had endorsed the original route, including Moscow's then-mayor Yuri Luzhkov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Mr. Medvedev, who was selected for the presidency by Mr. Putin in 2007, is widely viewed as the weaker partner in Russia's ruling tandem.

Mr. Medvedev used his video blog to announce the August move. He didn't speak publicly about the issue Tuesday.

Kremlin officials defended the decision as a step toward greater openness, saying it sent a clear signal about the importance of dialog with civic groups on controversial projects. "The head of state thinks that the example of the Khimki forest should be a lesson that such dialog is necessary," Mr. Mevedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, told reporters. She said the president thought the additional discussions had led to changes that would ease the impact of the project on the forest.

In more than two years in office, Mr. Medvedev has encouraged pro-democracy advocates with calls for greater openness and political competition. But critics say real change—such as easing the ruling party's political monopoly or Kremlin control of national media—has been slow to follow the public pledges.

"It's a very difficult situation because we'd like to support him, but it has to be a reciprocal process," said Yevgeny Gontmakher, an economist at a liberal-leaning institute that sometimes advises the Kremlin. "For the moment, it's all just on the level of rhetoric."

Mr. Nikitenko and his allies said Tuesday's decision on the highway left them disillusioned with Mr. Medvedev. They vowed to join opposition groups to challenge the Kremlin's candidate in presidential elections in 2012.

Political analysts say expectations of major shifts under Mr. Medvedev are unrealistic, however, given his commitment to ensuring the stability of the current ruling tandem. Mr. Medvedev is moving cautiously, they say, but is making some changes.

"This is a different president," said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant who works with the Kremlin and participated in some of the hearings on the Khimki case this fall. "He's more attentive to popular protest and demands debate on important issues."

When Mr. Putin was president, "Civil society was viewed not as a partner for the authorities but as an enemy backed by Western money," said Alexei Makarkin, a Moscow political consultant.

As an example of the change, Kremlin officials and analysts noted that last week, St. Petersburg city officials gave in to popular pressure and agreed to move a planned skyscraper that had prompted protests as a threat to the historic city's skyline. Mr. Medvedev had questioned the original plan earlier this year.

In the Khimki forest case, Mr. Nikitenko and other activists say the review process after Mr. Medvedev's August order was a formality. They denounced the proposed changes— elimination of planned stores along the route in the woods and planting of more trees in a nearby region to compensate those lost—as inadequate to protect the forest. They blamed the choice of the route on what they said were corrupt links between government officials and project investors. The road's backers deny that.

Officials defended the review process. Changing the route, they said, would have delayed completion of the road by four years, to 2017, and required relocating dozens of residents to new apartments.

The road, the first leg of a new highway that will link Moscow and St. Petersburg, is desperately needed to alleviate massive congestion along the existing Soviet-era highway. Traffic jams now can make the trip from central Moscow to the city's main international airport, located just beyond the Khimki forest, into a multi-hour ordeal.

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