Putin is already dead

As the Russian protest movement expands and radicalizes in the lead-up to the March 4 presidential election, the key question is not whether Vladimir Putin -- and Putinism -- will survive. They will not. Apart from its so obviously dysfunctional political system, Russia is facing growing problems of enormous complexity -- economic, social, demographic, ethnic -- that are impossible to solve within the rigid confines of neo-authoritarian "sovereign democracy" (which, as my Russian friends like to point out, is as to "democracy" as "electric chair" is to "chair"). Inextricably tied to Putinism, corruption, which is likely the worst in Russia's long history, is reaching the level of paralyzing key economic and social institutions.

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