THE CLOSING OF THE RUSSIAN MIND

Not so long ago, Russia under Putin appeared to be a corrupt state run by an elite mainly interested in their own privileges and wealth: authoritarian but not fundamentally expansionist. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine made it clear that Putin is driven by far more than simply greed. Putin's Russia is, Andrei Kolesnikov argues, in the grip of intense ideological radicalization, seeking to mobilize its population in support of a form of chauvinistic neo-imperialism using increasingly totalitarian methods.