How do civil society organizations operate in the authoritarian environment of Vladimir Putin’s “sovereign democracy?”  To what extent are they able to further their causes despite pervasive corruption and the rule of courts that take their cues from the Kremlin?

For several weeks now it’s been clear that Putin won’t attend this month’s NATO summit in Chicago. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently spoke with Russia’s new/old president and explained that it’s “not possible and not practical” for Putin to participate because of his “busy domestic calendar.”

Far from enhancing the Putin regime's legitimacy, the election will diminish it further in the eyes of a significant part of the Russian population.

And this time, I don’t think Putin is going anywhere. As they say, history doesn’t repeat, but sometimes it rhymes.

As the Russian protest movement expands and radicalizes in the lead-up to the March 4 presidential election, the key question is not whether Vladimir Putin--and Putinism--will survive.

There is a Russian saying, lyod tronulsya, which means the winter ice on the river has cracked and begun to move, that things have begun to change deeply and significantly. This is what's happening in today's Russia.

Now that it seems a certainty that Russia is headed for (at least) 12 more years of Putinism, alarm bells ought to be sounding. Why? Because by every indicator--macroeconomic, political, social--the system that Putin forged in the early 2000s is all but exhausted and is driving the country toward a dead end.

When Vladimir Putin returns to the Russian presidency on Monday, May 7, the pageantry surrounding his inauguration will aim to portray a picture of unassailable strength, a confident master of his domain invulnerable to pressures from within or without. But things are not quite as stable...