'Putin has never been seen as an advocate of the individual, and analysts say that a raft of constitutional amendments he secured last year, including one allowing him to run for two more six-year terms when his current stint in the Kremlin ends in 2024, have moved Russia further away from that goal.''Sakharov was one of the most prominent in a line of dissidents, stretching back before the failed experiment with communism and continuing after the Soviet Union’s demise, who have suggested that the country will never really thrive until a situation in which the perceived interests of the state trump the rights of each of its citizens is reversed.
Putin has never been seen as an advocate of the individual, and analysts say that a raft of constitutional amendments he secured last year, including one allowing him to run for two more six-year terms when his current stint in the Kremlin ends in 2024, have moved Russia further away from that goal.
The amendments have "indirectly undermined the first principle articulated in Article 2 of the Russian constitution, namely, that the individual rights and freedoms shall be of supreme value,” William Pomeranz, deputy director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, a U.S.-based think tank, wrote last year.
The changes in the constitution also weaken the judiciary and strengthen prosecutors, Pomeranz wrote ahead of their adoption in a nationwide vote denounced by Kremlin opponents as a farce.
With the constitutional changes, he added, Putin has quashed speculation about "the possibility of a more vibrant legislature" and "reforged a unified, autocratic, centralized, and highly personalized state."
"Russia will require yet another constitution if it ever wants to reclaim its status as an emerging democracy," Pomeranz wrote.
Political analysts predicted that the amendments, and the prospect of Putin remaining president until 2036, would embolden Russian law enforcement structures and leave government opponents and other ordinary citizens even more vulnerable to abuse at the hands of the state.
Those forecasts have been borne out by the crackdown that gathered force late last year and intensified following Navalny’s return to Russia in January.
And by one very direct measure, Putin’s Russia seems to have fallen short of Sakharov’s vision of openness: Ahead of the centenary of his birth, Moscow authorities prevented an exhibition meant to mark the occasion from taking place.'
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.Russia: Sakharov And The Future, May 25, 2021
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