Yes, I expect he'll be getting every possible half-tested life extension treatment that money can buy.
At this stage, I also wouldn't be that surprised if he amends their constitution to allow his uploaded intelligence to continue in the role after his physical death.
Once Putin is gone, someone else is going to take his place. There won't be much difference between Putin and the other guy, and that (small) difference may be for the better or it may be for the worse.
Putin is not in that place because he's somehow an extremely talented (or extremely lucky) person. Putin is there because that's what most of the Russian elite wants. Once he's gone, the Russian elite will put there somebody else who will fit them the most. It would not be reasonable to expect any drastic difference given the unchanging circumstances.
I think this paints a picture of oligarchy that might have been true when he first came to power but the tail is now wagging the dog. In fact it's not even the same dog the elites and billionaires of Russia now are childhood friends of Putin, people who worked with him in KGB or St Petersburg mayors office, the chef at a restaurant he frequented (RIP), etc.
I'm sure any of the original Russian elites left that weren't brought in by Putin regret him being put there would secretly love to see him gone. That doesn't mean they wouldn't end up in the same situation, countries where nobody trusts each other just waiting for the next dictator hard to get out of that cycle
> I'm sure any of the original Russian elites left that weren't brought in by Putin regret him being put there would secretly love to see him gone
Any elites that are there since before Putin, of whom there was notably more in 2012, could simply nominate someone else for the elections in 2012, or failing that, just keep that Medvedev guy for the second term. For some reason, they decided to move Medvedev away and put Putin back.
I am afraid that the set "any of the original Russian elites... that weren't brought in by Putin [and] regret him being put there" is an empty one.
The whole reason was to reset the counter of 2 consequent terms of presidency without touching the constitution since "The Party" didn't have 2/3 of parliament to be sure.
The reason for puttin' Putin was ... Putin himself. The system he finished building during the time (the shift of power and resources to capital from regions was done in 2010-11) doesn't actually work without him as a consensual figure for all "elites".
I am certain that Shoigu, or Mishustin, or Rogozhin, or the same Medvedev again, could all replace Putin just fine should a need arise. As I wrote, that would be a small change anyway, and not necessarily for the good.
Navalny, on the other hand, never had a chance, unless the vote for Russian president was done among the US voting populace. In that case, he would no doubt win a landslide victory. In Russia outside of the Moscow intellectual spheres, he's simply unknown — it's not that the people in Vorkuta hate him, they don't know who he is (was) to begin with.
In the USSR media of 1980s, there was a lot of talk of Angela Davis, she was the undoubtful "opposition leader" in the USA, as presented by Soviet media. Navalny is in the same position.
LOL. Shoigu is a PR guy, Mishustin isn't a politic by any means, Rogozin (if you've meant ex-director of Roskosmos) never was even a member of Putin's party. The common thing between all 3 is loyalty to Putin: proclaimed during 99-2000 transition, the corrupt tax service head and KGB soldier, respectively.
You're talking to a guy outside of Moscow who knew Navalny from his LiveJournal blog. Republic of Komi - the region Vorkuta is in - has 0.5% of Russia's population.
And Putin was a retired KGB officer working under Sobchak and heading the FSB when he suddenly got promoted to prime minister and then named as Yeltsin’s replacement. Not exactly a career politician either. “Putin’s party” is a misnomer, it was created out of nowhere around the guy anyway. If they chose a loyal apparatchik and put him in that place while creating a party around him once, what makes you think they can't do it again?
Transition of power is notoriously difficult in authoritarian systems and Putin is more of an exception rather than a normal occurence. Only Stalin had this level of control in Russia in the past 100 years. Do you remember who came after Stalin? Georgy Malenkov, but even I had to google his name, he didn't stay there for long. Even (the better known) Khruschev wasn't a strong ruler and got ousted in a couple of years.
I think a good proxy for russian situation would be China. They have changed the guy a couple of times in the last 30 years but the policy stayed the same. The only things that can bring a change are either a coup (not likely in Russia) or a black horse like Gorbachev.
I also don’t think that reductio ad Stalinum is in place here. Putin got a full blessing from the retiring guy, and by that proxy from the elites as well. It’s not that he deposed the king in a coup d’etat or something.
The picture where Putin is a detested psycho hated by everyone including all of his comissars who just wait for a stroke (or bullet) to replace him with a popular, young and charismatic Western-style democratic leader — that's nothing but a conspiracy. And as far as conspiracies go — and as much as that conspiracy is depressing — that's actually an optimistic one. Look, something happens to Putin, and we can have a revolution! But the reality is an even more depressing thought. And the reality is that he has both the elites' support and popular support.
You're building a strawman. We can't expect democracy after Putin is gone, but we can't also expect the same situation we're in now. Putin was an exceptionally strong leader, but part of that role is pruning all possible strong competitors, which usually means that a weak leader will succeed him. The good thing about weak leaders is that it's difficult (and personally risky) for them to mobilize a country for a new war, even if they're more psycho than Putin. As you say, Putin has a lot of support, a new random person will not just magically inherit it just because they're now the president.
> a new random person will not just magically inherit it just because they're now the president
How do you explain that Putin, who was virtually nobody, was nominated as a prime minister in August 1999, declared Yeltsin's successor in December 1999, and then was elected as the president in March 2000, less than eight months after the broad populace first heard of him? How do you explain that the Kremlin nominates a governor, the populace who (at times) never heard of that governor comes and votes for him?
Russia doesn't work the way Western democracy does.
