President Putin is often presented by Western media as an autocratic leader free of checks and balances who imposes his will in foreign policy. If we could only climb ‘inside the head of Vladimir Putin’, to paraphrase the title of a recent book by French philosopher Michel Eltchaninoff, we could divine his intentions and predict his next moves. But though Putin does indeed enjoy a remarkably free hand abroad, he still has to take public opinion into account in weighing up his options.
After a year spent fixating on Ukraine and entertaining great power ambitions, the Russian people are turning …read more
Russian foreign policy: domestic constraints
