Ariel Cohen is Henry Salvatori Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He has published widely on U.S.-Russian relations and democratization in the former Soviet Union.
The image of Putin’s Russia as an authoritarian oil state attracts many Western analysts because it seems to carry a promise that falling oil prices will bring regime change. Thus,…
After the December 2011 State Duma elections, the Russian opposition and civil society quickly launched large protest rallies in response to electoral fraud.