Putin Won't Liberalise Anything

In a comment piece in The Moscow Times Nikolai Petrov, scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, rules out the possibility of Vladimir Putin implementing liberalising reforms in his third presidential term. He says that now that the election is over and the time has come to backtrack from costly populist policies, Putin will be unable to persuade the country that the huge airplane flying Russia's passengers is headed for a sharp fall. It is very possible that somebody else will have to manage this rough landing in a couple of years, when the state's financial reserves have been depleted and no other options remain.