JRL NEWSWATCH: “Regime Change in Russia Won’t Lead to Chaos or Collapse” – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
“History shows that a change of leader in Russia has almost always been accompanied not by civil strife, but by liberalization.”
“… [R]ecent years have seen regional leaders transformed into technocrats whose every move is closely controlled by the federal center. They depend on Moscow for everything, and are accountable to the Kremlin — not the local people. All such regional leaders aspire to get a plum job in the federal government, not to become a powerful local leader. … Given the gradual, inevitable exhaustion of Putin’s governance model — financially, socially, economically, psychologically, and politically — a technocratic or temporary leader will need to be able to ensure a transition toward normalization. …”