The prospect of a relatively stable outcome to Putin’s anticipated next term depends on the way that Russia’s central authorities manage their relationship with the country’s wider society over the course of 2018-2024. The Putin regime has made enforcing domestic discipline its main priority and thereby limited its options. The “Vertical of Power” is ill fashioned and has become corroded, making the implementation of fresh or imaginative new policies at the Kremlin’s behest, if any of significance were unexpectedly proposed, extremely difficult.The prelude to the presidential elections on March 18 next year still has its foggy patches. It is not …read more
Source: The American Interest
