Carnegie Moscow Center
As the Russian economy declines, Vladimir Putin faces a classic choice between greater freedom and more repression
Local elections in Russia last weekend seemed to confirm the dominance of United Russia, the “party of power.” But the Kremlin may be forced to end its reliance on United Russia before next year’s Duma elections.
Russia’s political elites and, particularly, its president have no strategic vision of the future and no adequate assessment of reality. The authorities are seeking to prolong the inertia model until the presidential elections in 2018, but afterwards the Kremlin will need strategic decisions.
While the Kremlin continues to score plenty of tactical victories in the political sphere, the regime has demonstrated no ability to think strategically. The lack of strategic thinking stems from the elites’ desire to preserve their own power and the whims of an authoritarian political system.
Russian public opinion polls since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis reveal a contradiction: ordinary Russians are against war and intervention abroad. But a skillful television propaganda campaign has persuaded them that in Ukraine they are helping their own and opposing Western designs against them.
Putin’s recent theatrics indicate a plan to run for re-election in 2018. But despite his lack of opponents, Russia’s current problems make the path to re-election more complicated this time around.
The symbolic affinity between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin represents not only a shared outlook on the current world, but also a shared view of history.
The clash between Governor Meniaylo and Speaker Chaliy has brought Sevastopol to the brink of mass public protests. The Kremlin is working hard to try and manage local political struggles in Crimea
Contemporary Russia has developed into an autocracy without some of its most overt elements, relying on a secretive "nod-and-wink" collusion between rulers and ruled. It is a personalist regime but one that still takes care to follow procedural niceties
A brazen attack by Christian conservatives on an art exhibition in central Moscow evoked measured criticism from the Russian authorities. But their appeal of the attackers to archaic and anti-modern values is only an extreme form of current Russian state ideology.