The state of Russia: Frost at the core

This article coincides with the video we watched in class on the Russian oligarchs, picking up where the video left off. Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's jail sentence expires next year and the Russian government has now charged him with stealing money in order to keep him in jail. Once the symbol of the "injustice and inequality of the 1990's" he is now the "symbol of the injustices perpetrated by corrupt bureaucracies and members of the security service." The article talks about how under Putin, and now Medevdev, a new breed of "bureaucrat-entreprenurs" came to power. They have privatized the Russian state, a "asset that was under-capitalised and weak." State corruption in Russia is now estimated at $300 billion, 20% of GDP, mostly in the form of contracts awarded to bureaucrats and their companies. This comes in a time of decreased economic growth causing an increasing feeling of injustice, even among oligarchs. The system no longer works and the economy is starting stagnate. According to the article, much of the elite have come to realize the system is ineffective and are no longer willing to support it and when "the ordinary people come to share this view, the system is in grave danger." The article brings about the question: what will the future of the Russian state be? Will corruption and economic stagnation become too much for the people to bear and eventually cause a regime change?