Lyndon Allin notes at once that Putin’s government is losing legitimacy and stomping on its own support, but a strong democratic movement doesn’t exist to topple him any time soon.

Bright People in Senate Will Not Save Kremlin
By Nikolai Petrov, Thursday, February 17, 2005. Page 9.

Ä…Å Political stability now hangs by a thread. This thread is not the president himself but his popularity, constantly slipping of late. The state is rapidly losing its institutions and its legitimacy. And instead of looking for new sources of support, the government keeps destroying the ones it has. Putin continues to rely on the siloviki and law enforcement, who are helpless when large groups of protesters unite. One would think the month of protests would have made this obvious, but no, the Kremlin continues to dig its own grave.

I do have to make a statement toward this that is both contradictory and in agreement to the above.

Putin actually is reaching out for support, but not inward. Much of Russia’s past power has been derived from the Baltic and CIS states, and as a consequence, Putin must retain that in order to have his inner support. Without it, Russia will continually be marginalized, and in effect, so will he. The main problem with his foreign policy toward the “near-abroad,” as illustrated by this recent post on Russia-Latvia relations, is that instead of reaching out for mutually beneficial relationships, he makes threats and interferes in the respective sovereign country’s affairs. He is masochistically pushing potential allies and resources away from Russia and toward Europe.

Will Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, etc, now that they are free to choose, take the side of a regime that only seeks to subvert them? Of course not. And the more Putin loses their favor, the more he loses favor from his own people.