(Eurasia Daily Monitor) Considering Russia’s shocking transformation in the course of just half a year, it is easy to forget that last February the country was united in the joy of hosting the Sochi Winter Olympic games. The issues that dominated the political agenda at the start of the year—like growing outrage over rampant corruption or concerns about the violent instability in the North Caucasus—have all but disappeared from the present-day debates. At the same time, the issues that one would expect to be at the top of the agenda currently—like the deteriorating economic situation or the falling ruble—attract some expert opinions but by far less public worry. Indeed, in today’s Russia, the basic trends of de-modernization and degradation are now beyond doubt.
Moscow’s swift annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula generated an explosion of public triumphalism that has flattened and simplified rather than enriched Russia’s political landscape. The regional elections in September were reduced to the pro-forma confirmation of the Kremlin-vetted candidates, and this year’s vote registered particularly low participation. In Moscow, for that matter, a legislature entirely free of opposition figures was duly elected, even though, just one year earlier, the opposition blogger Alexei Navalny gained surprisingly strong support in the capital’s mayoral elections. This growing irrelevance of domestic politics is aggravated by the Russian government’s aggressive…
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