And yet, amid the breakdown that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union but lasted well beyond 1991, Putin consolidated a new autocracy. This fusion of fragility and path dependence derives from many factors that are not easily rewired: geography, a national-imperial identity, an ingrained strategic culture.

“Caused by many, many factors, but NOT Yeltsin’s coup and the Neoliberal ravaging of the country that followed. Definitely not!”