Russia's elections

Analysis 

Russia Election: Putin Can't Hope to Match NATO in Strength, but He Has One Advantage

Vladimir Putin, who is certain to be elected Sunday for another six-year term as Russia’s president, has already surpassed in his 18 years in office all but one of Russia’s leaders in the 20th century — Josef Stalin. The man who assumed power, virtually both within and outside Russia, on the lPutin is no ideologue. Instead he has succeeded in fusing together the forces of “red” Russia — people who are still nostalgic for the Soviet Union — and “white” Russians who long for the old days of empire.

Having been a young KGB officer in the dying days of the USSR, he is fully aware of how the state he served had engineered its own collapse. Early on in his presidency he said that “anyone who doesn’t miss the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who wants it back has no brain.”

That doesn’t mean he was happy at its demise, which to him was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” It's just that he fully realizes the flaws of the communist system and has no interest in trying to bring back what he considers anyway a “German,” not a Russian idea.ast day of 1999 already has a significant legacy.

Putin stabilized Russia after its chaotic first post-Soviet decade, solidified his hold on power and suppressed any major opposition. He oversaw a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity and breathed into a muddled and divided society a rejuvenated sense of Russian patriotism.