On December 27, 2010, businessmen and entrepreneurs Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev received the maximum sentence, fourteen years, on patently fabricated charges. What is the impact of the sentencing on the Russian economy and foreign investments? How will the democratic opposition proceed in this political climate? And how should US policymakers deal with this new reality?

Khodorkovsky's fate is almost certainly being decided not in Judge Danilkin's chambers, but in the Kremlin by two people: Vladimir Putin and his protégé, the haltingly liberal president, Dmitri Medvedev.

Is Russia reverting to state control of enterprise, as exemplified by the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

This Outlook elucidates the key elements of Russian president Dmitri Medvedev's modernization campaign, listing the areas where it is badly needed but has not been applied, and suggests tests for its implementation.

Russian president Dmitri Medvedev's rhetoric may portend a break with the policies of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, but to prove he means what he says, Medvedev should begin redressing some of the most conspicuous miscarriages of justice that marked the Putin regime.

Protests that have swept the country in the past few months point to a growing dissatisfaction with the Kremlin's policies; as the only viable political challenge to the Putin-Medvedev Kremlin, they bear careful watching.