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Yes, but there were a lot of vassals who were not on board with the new top-down direction in the early 2000s. Putin made a lot of enemies with vassals that di
by speakfreely 3y ago
Yes, but there were a lot of vassals who were not on board with the new top-down direction in the early 2000s. Putin made a lot of enemies with vassals that didn't want to play ball with the new rules, Khodorkovsky being a notable example. There's surely plenty of others that weren't steamrolled as badly and still retain the ability to strike back at him if he's no longer the all-important boss of Russia.
- petre 3y agoThat's the post-Soviet oligarchs who thought Russia had become a free market economy didn't get that they have to bow to the new czar. Of course, there wasn't a flip the switch moment from state A to B. It all became increasingly authoritarian during Putin's several mandates. He put his allies in key positions, favorised loyal interest groups, locked up or otherwise liquidated potential adversaries. It's really a mafia state, just like the late sen. Jonh McCaine said, but since they have wide popular support, I think we can safely call it feudalism. I've read an article and they've identified somewhere after April 2008 when the Bucharest NATO Summit (Putin was also present) took place and before August 2008, when the Russian invasion of Georgia began as the moment Putin ultimately decided to invade a nearby state in order to prevent NATO expansion into post-Soviet states. That's his red line, that's why he also invaded Ukraine. He still views these countries as part of the USSR/Russian world, just like Belarus where he currently tries a Crimean-style Anschluss. The reality is quite a bit different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War