Putin gets a grip
President Vladimir Putin is beginning to dominate Russian politics. But he has yet to show that he can bring lasting changes for the better
REMEMBER Russia this time last year, and pinch yourself. Vladimir Putin was an inconspicuous bureaucrat. The Kremlin, under the ailing President Boris Yeltsin, seemed set for a humiliating defeat in the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. The government was a corrupt shambles. Regional barons both ruled their own fiefs and held great sway at court. And the oligarchs—Russia's self-important tycoons—seemed cosily entrenched in the overlap between business and government.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Putin gets a grip”
From the August 5th 2000 edition
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