Remember way back three lifetimes ago (a.k.a. the beginning of this year), when I wrote about Russia’s possible regime change?

If you don’t remember (or just need a refresher), Russian President Vladimir Putin kicked off 2020 with some bold moves, using his annual address to the nation’s Federal Assembly to “propose a number of constitutional amendments for discussion.” These “amendments” were not just administrative, either, but touched on some core issues, like forbidding top-level government officials from having foreign residence or citizenship and, infamously, repealing the clause limiting the president to two consecutive terms.

And then, even more spectacularly, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the entire Russian cabinet resigned after the speech (although Putin’s key cabinet officials were reappointed a week later).

As you can imagine, there was much speculation at the time about what was going on, precisely. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Western pundits’ opinions converged on the idea that this was some sort of ploy by Putin to basically stay in power for the rest of his life (or at least a good chunk of it).

You might also recall that I was less sure of that conclusion, going so far as to state “it seems most likely that Putin will step down as planned in 2024 and the next president will have less power to shape the course of Russian politics single-handedly.”

Well, silly me. Looks like I was wrong. Maybe. You see, the Russian government held a referendum on the proposed constitutional reforms earlier this month and they passed with 77.8% support.

So what do the reforms state, specifically, and how will they impact the Russian Federation going forward?

Interested in the latest Russian constitutional reforms? Read all about them and get James’ analysis about what they really mean in this week’s edition of The Corbett Report Subscriber.

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