Page 2 - While Russians News Today

The Globe and Mail Nina L. Khrushcheva Published February 17, 2021 Bookmark Please log in to listen to this story. Also available in French and Mandarin. Log In Create Free Account Getting audio file ... This translation has been automatically generated and has not been verified for accuracy. Full Disclaimer Nina L. Khrushcheva is a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York and co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russi...

Nina L Khrushcheva There are arguably two moments in the last century when a wrecking ball was taken to Russia’s political regime. In 1917, the Bolshevik revolution toppled the country’s teetering monarchy. And, in 1991, an abortive coup by Marxist-Leninist hardliners against the reformist Mikhail Gorbachev accelerated the tottering Soviet Union’s collapse. Does the wave of protests which have swept Russia in recent weeks herald another regime change? Not likely. To be sure, unlike the pr...

Unlike the protests that roiled Russia in 2011-12 in response to Vladimir Putin’s third presidency, today’s protest movement has a charismatic and sympathetic leader. But Putin has spent the last decade consolidating a police state, and he is prepared to use every available tool to retain power.