Dealing with Uncertainty
Russia’s most popular opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, announced his candidacy for the 2018 presidential election. Although it will be a while before the formal candidate registration procedure starts, this move can win some public support for Navalny and create a supportive context for the ongoing criminal trials he faces.
Helping Syria’s government forces to conquer Aleppo cost Russia support in the Middle East, fostered multiple protests internationally, and took the lives of Russian citizens, including that of the nation’s ambassador to Turkey. For that reason, Russian officials quickly announced a new ceasefire, a major achievement to start moving parts of its military out of the country.
Russia’s leadership decided to avoid traditional retaliatory measures for the Obama Administration’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats just a few weeks before the transition to the Trump Administration. The Kremlin’s motivation is to avoid at almost any cost spoiling the expected re-start of US-Russian relations.
Russians are not fully aware of what the country’s Constitution states but there is good reason for that – the large majority of the population believes it either plays a limited role or exists on paper only.
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