Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 07/2012

Russia on the Move

Dmitri Trenin, Maria Lipman, Alexey Malashenko, Nikolay Petrov

June 2012

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Abstract

To the casual observer, Russia is stuck where it was a decade ago. Vladimir Putin has once again assumed the presidency and any semblance of organized political opposition largely faded away after the March elections. But popular protests persist, and the existing politico-economic system can no longer adequately address the shifting social realities inside the country or the challenges of the global environment. The system must change if Russia is to develop further, and Moscow’s policies of economic modernization alone are neither sufficient nor possible without political reform.