Those who Want to Reform Russia after Putin Must Identify Short-Term Tasks and Pursue Them before Tackling Larger Ones, Titayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – One of the chief characteristics of most opposition discussions of what must be done to change Russia after Putin departs the scene is a tendency to treat the problem globally, to act as if everything must be changed or nothing will happen. But in fact, in many areas, those who want change must distinguish between immediate steps and longer-term ones.

            If they pursue only the larger, longer-term ones, they may find themselves building a house without a foundation; and if they fail to address the more immediate ones which can be changed more quickly and easily, they will not gain the support of the population they will need to make the bigger changes later.

            Those are just some of the broader issues raised in a remarkable new paper by Kirill Titayev, a visiting Russian scholar at Cornell University’s law school on how to improve the situation in his native country’s law enforcement operations (reforum.io/blog/2023/07/05/kak-bystro-uluchshit-situacziyu-v-pravoohranitelnoj-sisteme/).

            His specific recommendations as to what reformers should do first are perhaps not surprising except for the fact that few who talk about the future focus on such issues and many thus fail to address issues that could be dealt with easily and therefore build support for a post-Putin government without the risk that radical and more holistic ones could lead to chaos.