The Kremlin Two Step
To dismiss Dmitri Medvedev as a mere puppet of Vladimir Putin, or, on the contrary, to focus on minor differences between them as signs of a looming split, is misleading and wrong. The two men need each other, and the real question is whether there is light for Russia at the end of the tandem.
https://prosyn.org/JRHN1W8
Moscow – Westerners often see Russian politics in terms of a high-level struggle between liberals and conservatives: Ligachev and Yakovlev under Gorbachev; reformers and nationalists under Yeltsin; siloviki and economic liberals under Putin. They also view Russia in terms of a tradition whereby every new tsar partly repudiates the legacy of his predecessor, creating a political thaw at the beginning of a new reign. Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization is Exhibit A.