Russian politics is pretty de-institutionalized as is, with real power in the “deep state” largely located within Putin’s court and a few other informal circles of common interest and converging intent.
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As I write this, Moscow is clearing up after the latest Great Patriotic War nostalgia-fest. The Victory Day parade is a chance to remember past glories, drink, wear a pilotka and, for those of us disposed to that kind of thing, ooh and aah at the squat-turreted tanks and phallic missiles clanking and clattering their way through the city.
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Today, the Leninskii District court in Kirov (what would those two Bolsheviks have made of it all?) is due to see the start of Alexei Navalny’s case, as he faces charges of embezzling $500,000 through timber sales from the KirovLes enterprise.
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It would be difficult to argue that the Russian political system is squeaky clean. However, the ways in which the media defines corruption are skewed to classify what may be elements of long embedded cultural practices within Russian political cultural as injustices that necessarily need adjusting.
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