Putin’s successor would inherit a highly authoritarian political system. The core is the executive presidency, which looms over all other formal bodies. The government is the junior part of the executive and submits to presidential authority. The presidential administration controls the parliament. Russia’s regions and its business class, influential actors in the 1990s, had been resubordinated to the central state by the mid-2000s. The regime dominates the media and has largely neutralized perceived challenges from society. Under Putin, two other factors have helped to turn this presidential system into a personalist autocracy: the informal patron–client networks linked to him that have colonized formal institutions; and the proliferation of para-constitutional bodies answerable to him that short-circuit formal organs.
The immediate priority for an incoming leadership would be to cement its grip on power. Because a new president would lack Putin’s authority at first, the process of regime consolidation might stretch beyond 2027. Pressure for consolidation would come from the elite forces that had backed the transition in the first place. And once Putin’s successor had been identified and elected as president, the new leadership would exert a powerful gravitational pull on other actors intent on securing their futures.
In the aftermath of the election, a post-Putin leadership would seek to take charge of the main instruments of political and economic power, so as to deny them to potential rivals. As a means of facilitating control, a powerful executive presidency would have obvious appeal to those at the helm of the state during this period. If the gradual consolidation of a post-Putin regime continued more or less successfully, what might be the longer-term implications for Russia’s political development?
In the aftermath of the election, a post-Putin leadership would seek to take charge of the main instruments of political and economic power, so as to deny them to potential rivals.
Relevant considerations would include the outlook, temperament, political skills and policy preferences of the new president; the cohesion of the elite coalition that elevated him to power; the evolving relationship between the president and that coalition, with particular emphasis on whether the president was able to manage the elite interests around him; and the extent to which he was seen to deliver effective leadership. Recent successions (from Boris Yeltsin to Putin, from Putin to Dmitry Medvedev, and from Medvedev back to Putin) quickly produced changes in leadership style and tone. More substantively, by the end of 2027 the new president might be an increasingly assertive leader, acting autonomously of the coalition that had brought him to power, or a more consensual figure – more akin to what could be considered a chairman of the board of Russia, Inc. Either way, as he built his own power base, he would have an interest in distancing himself from Putin, who would make a convenient scapegoat for Russia’s problems. Another variable would be the external environment, which the new leadership would almost certainly judge as threatening. The situation along Russia’s western borders, particularly in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, would probably be uncertain, even unstable; in addition, Ukraine would be rebuilding and rearming with Western support. Here, it should be recalled that one of the author’s initial assumptions for this scenario is that, in general, relations between Russia and the leading Western powers would remain largely broken.
On account of both internal and external factors, therefore, Russia’s political system would almost certainly remain essentially authoritarian. Even then, however, there would be a range of plausible outcomes. At one end of that range, a post-Putin leader might instinctively look to solidify his position by strengthening the power of the central state even further. If he pursued this path, he would encounter relatively weak checks and balances, and one would expect the security and law enforcement agencies to acquire even more influence. The consequences could be severe, perhaps including clampdowns on new targets such as the Yabloko party or ‘loyal’ oppositionists such as members of the Communist Party; the destruction of the final vestiges of media freedoms via even tighter state control of the domestic internet; more anti-corruption campaigns to corral elites; more monitoring of foreign travel by ordinary Russians; still shriller anti-Western propaganda; the further promotion of ‘traditional’ Orthodox values (possibly leading to the criminalization of same-sex relationships); and even, perhaps, the restoration of the death penalty. The emergence of an even more authoritarian political system might accompany a shift to the type of hard-line foreign policy described below.
Such an outcome would not be inevitable, however. At the other end of the spectrum of possibilities, regime consolidation might eventually lead to a limited relaxation that dismantled ‘high Putinism’. The purpose of such a process would be to co-opt Russia’s elites by moving away from the autocracy that had endangered their security and damaged the national interest. The new regime might start to function in a more consultative fashion, interacting more collegially with the government and parliament – again mediated through formal institutions (such as a revamped Security Council) and the informal ‘network state’. The new president might make less use of para-constitutional bodies. Looser political controls could entail less repression of non-elite opponents and freedom for those jailed for criticizing the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine – perhaps even the release of opposition activists such as Alexei Navalny. Within defined limits, there might be greater space for semi-serious opposition figures to contest the 2026 parliamentary elections, which would be a milestone for the new regime, and more room for non-state media. In this version, by the end of 2027, Russia’s political model would still be authoritarian by Western standards (the security services would remain powerful agencies) but it could be starting, albeit slowly, to look more like the system that existed in Putin’s third presidential term (2012–18).
Might a new leadership go further and advocate constitutional reform, diluting presidential power in favour of the parliament and Russia’s regions? Such a development would be unlikely in this scenario. A necessary precondition would almost certainly be a major weakening of the power and authority of central state institutions – which a managed leadership transition would presumably help to avert, at least in the immediate term.
Alternatively, the consolidation of a post-Putin leadership might not be smooth. This could happen for several reasons. A new president might encounter resistance from sections of the previous regime and struggle to assert control over the levers of power. Because informal rules would remain the hidden wiring of the system – in terms of allocating roles, responsibilities and assets – it is likely that any ruling coalition would be inherently fractious and prone to infighting. A new leader might lack the political standing to deal with these tensions. At worst, it is possible that competing clans, unable or unwilling to sink their differences, would vie for supremacy. Such an eventuality would echo the events of the late 1990s, when Russia’s elites became openly split over the succession to Yeltsin. Meanwhile, a traumatic defeat in Ukraine could aggravate divisions in Russian society: political uncertainty might encourage marginalized groups or outsiders to mobilize against the new authorities. Such potentially destabilizing circumstances could persuade a post-Putin leadership to try to impose order through greater coercion. Depending on the scale of the repression needed to accomplish that goal, it might trigger a slide towards an even harsher political system.