Carnegie Moscow Center
The parallels between the late Soviet era and contemporary Russia are indeed striking. But is this analogy applicable? Not entirely. To assess Russia’s future we should look not to its own recent history, but to the developments in countries that experienced similar transitions.
Russia’s involvement in Syria helps Vladimir Putin distract Russians from their country’s economic woes. However, Russian power seems to lack any long-term vision.
Vladimir Putin is making a bid to regain global respectability by leading a fight against ISIS and evoking the anti-Hitler coalition of World War II. The West is yet to be convinced that the appeal to be “brothers-in-arms” is serious.
A new Ukrainian campaign to blockade Crimea is a gift for the Kremlin as it tries to distract the public’s attention away from the major challenges facing the peninsula and the questionable actions being undertaken by the Russian government against its population.
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.