Kremlin policy: Strategic or like the music of a jazz group?

... But I wonder how seriously they have thought about this assumption. When I ask Russians if they see an alternative, they usually can say what they don't like about Putin. But I have I have yet to hear anyone present a credible alternative. Mikhail Gorbachev, reflecting the view of a large part of the Russian public, once said that Putin literally saved Russia. Yet the difficulty of imaging a country after the departure of an extraordinary leader is not unique to Russia under Putin. Think of the French trying to imagine France after de Gaulle? What ...