“Russia’s Pathologies”
Yup. No bias there.
The result is that Russian nationalism and concepts of state power and citizenship commonly look to Russian examples alone rather than to the broader civilizational context that Americans and Europeans are familiar with as the sources of state and national norms of behavior.
In Russia, the principles of democratic accountability and that leaders must follow the law are but thinly rooted and essentially foreign concepts. Above all, a decisively large proportion of Russians today have a premodern belief in the state and its leaders as having innate legitimacy in spite of corruption and appalling misbehavior and errors.
This is best understood as arising from a combination of Russian history and natural resource extraction. The Russian state and identity arose as an expansionist imperial enterprise by the Duchy of Moscow. Over time, they incorporated nearby lands and compatible peoples like those of the Kievan Rus.
Other territories and peoples were also gradually subjugated, with Russian control extending into the Caucasus and across the Urals to the Far East. This immense and multi-century process required determined leadership with a vision and planning that extended for decades. The last thing that one wants in such a society is a disruptive change in leadership that endanger such an enterprise or unsettle the internal political order.
In addition, the Russian economy and state finances were and are based primarily on resource extraction and the state providing the transportation and security needed for manufactured goods and agricultural products. As with the Mideast's petrostates, this "natural resources trap" leads toward a corrupt, autocratic state and society.
My complaint is that the article refers to Russia's pathologies and then offers historical examples. As this post indicates, my preference is more toward offering an analytical framework for understanding (but not excusing) Russia and the behavior of its leaders.