Is Russia a lost cause for the democratic world, or will the soon-to-be-president-yet-again Vladimir Putin continue to guarantee democracy and stability over his glorious land with his testosterone –fuelled antics? 

Putin’s recent announcement that he will be standing for the Russian presidency again does not come as a great surprise, but it puts paid to real hopes of ending the country’s deeply entrenched problems of nepotism and corruption. Many will be pleased at the prospect of seeing the Russian president yet again hunting bears bare-chested but Russia’s stability is looking more and more like stagnation.
Prospects have looked poor for democracy in the Russian Federation ever since its first president, Boris Yeltsin, solved a dispute with the parliament in 1993 by bringing in the tanks. Corruption then grew massively under his rule thereafter, and with hyperinflation, a failure of state services, and newly-created oligarchs running rampant, many were relieved when Putin came to power and seemed to bring a certain amount of order back to the country.

Putin cracked down on oligarchs selectively however, and he made it clear they could continue making obscene profits so long as they supported him. There have been claims that Putin is Europe’s richest man; his personal wealth remains unknown, and the subject is taboo in Russian media.

Inequality in Russia has skyrocketed under Putin – and while oligarchs continue to cream off their country’s wealth and flit between London, their yachts and the Alps, their homeland becomes ever more impoverished. Russia takes third place in the world for its number of billionaires, after the US and Germany – but while in the States small enterprise contributes over 50% of GDP, in Russia it stands at about 15% - strangled by the mafia state’s web of corruption.

Ethnic tensions continue to rise, fuelled by Putin’s 1999 decision to send the Russian army into Chechnya – where a pro-Putin strongman has been given carte blanche to keep the population under control by any means. Violence in the Caucasus is endemic, to the point where even Russian nationalists would rather see the region cut loose. The Russian military oversees a harsh system where during the first half of their service new conscripts are beaten, bullied and humilitated, and during the second half, they bully the next round of recruits.

Russia has continued on the same depressing trajectory with Medvedev as president. When Putin stepped down in 2008 to become prime minister, having reached the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms in office as president, he backed Dmitri Medvedev for the position he had left. Many feared Medvedev would be no more than a puppet; their fears seem to have been realised as Putin has remained the key source of power, and Medvedev has now stepped aside to allow Putin back into office.

“Modernisation” – the buzzword of Medvedev’s term in office – has made no real impact on corruption.  Policies have been pushed through which make success in life dependent on wealth – most recently the government proposed to charge for all school subjects except four – Russia in the World, General Safety, Physical Education, and an Individual Project – which would leave those who couldn’t afford other subjects illiterate and innumerate, but indoctrinated in Russia’s greatness.

It is almost inevitable that Putin will win next year’s presidential election – his popularity, though falling, remains high, and there is no real opposition to his United Russia party. Technicalities will be used to explain away a lack of credible alternative candidates for the presidency, and if all else fails, ballot boxes can be stuffed. Russians with the means to do so will continue to emigrate, and while Russia’s leaders remains unchanged, so too will the country’s despair.