Quote Originally Posted by Firn View Post
Putin Clans Gridlocked Over Arrest as Sanctions Bite is a rather dramatic title but it meshes well with earlier papers and reports like that NYT article or comments by the current or former finance ministers.
I think the biggest take away from that article is that the Putin administration is not monolithic, and that it contains a number of factions competing for power, wealth, and influence. It might be tempting to believe that the Russian government is stock full of 'irrational criminals' living in an 'altered state of reality' but the truth is that decision-making in Moscow is really a function of a factional process in which the combat between competing voices produces sub-optimal policy outcomes (not unlike in the U.S.).

For me, the real question is how much influence will the nationalists gain at the expense of the realists and technocrats still remaining in government.