Why has he been so successful?

Thanks to Yeltsin’s disastrous economic reforms, Russia had gone into deep recession in the 1990s, with runaway inflation. In his 2000 manifesto, Putin pledged to rebuild the Russian state and ensure domestic stability. In the early years, buoyed by high oil prices, he provided strong economic growth. At the same time, he began reversing Russia’s newfound freedoms, taking control of the news media and creating a “managed democracy” with only token opposition movements. He destroyed anyone who dared criticize his new political order: Billionaire oligarchs such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky were jailed; critical journalists and legislators were murdered. Putin’s unspoken “social contract”—authoritarian control in return for stability—has proved mostly popular, although there are occasional outbreaks of protest.