There is gratification but no comfort in seeing Vladimir Putin’s grip on power loosened. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the warlord whose aborted mutiny gave the world a glimpse of Putin’s political mortality, represents nothing better for Russia’s future. There is not much hope for democracy in a country where the most effective challenge to a tyrant’s rule comes from a murderous bandit who demands more competent tyranny.
As for what happens next, there is not much point forecasting from abroad. I learned as a correspondent in Moscow that decrypting Russian power games is hard enough from inside the country. The boundary between rumour, misinformation, paranoid conspiracy theory and actual conspiracy is hard to discern. That’s why I came home. Nothing stirs appreciation of western liberal democracy like sustained exposure to its opposite.
