Regime and personal survival are often overlooked as pundits and scholars alike try to build elaborate models of an ideology that drives Russia’s elite. But all the way back to the first unfairly contested reelection of Putin in 2005, perpetuating rule to avoid the repercussions of ill-gotten gains is a much better diagnosis of the regime’s impetus.

—Jeremy Morris, „Russia’s Vanguard Authoritarian Neoliberal System“, in Backlash: The Global Rise of the Radical Right, (London: Pluto Press, 2026), 126.