> The Pax Putin has been for a long time, apparently, an unwritten deal with the society, whereby he provides prosperity and prestige ("everyone is scared of Ru

> The Pax Putin has been for a long time, apparently, an unwritten deal with the society, whereby he provides prosperity and prestige ("everyone is scared of Russia") in return for the society accepting authoritarian, undemocratic rule.... > Impossible to know how topplable Putin is, but he is now outside of the parameters of the deal he brokered with his people. People have been saying similar things about the Chinese Communist Party for years, and no meaningful "progress" has happened (in fact, quite the opposite). I suspect a lot of it is liberals, usually Western, reading in hope where there is none (e.g. "the deal" is just a surface-level propaganda structure, and the regime is far more solid than that alone).