Really what Putin does is consolidate a system that Yeltsin built. I see a lot of very significant continuities, instead of a break between the two. And so to that extent, the Putin regime is really a product of those free-market reforms of the 1990s that threw up a nominally democratic government, that carried through a free market transition and is very committed to capitalism and the principle of private wealth. And that's what Putin is - he is committed to all of those things.

Writer Tony Wood explores contemporary Russian politics beyond the West's Vladimir Putin hysteria - from the legacy of the chaotic post-Soviet realignment towards market-driven capitalism, to Putin's shifts between neoliberal and authoritarian modes as the country navigates the new landscape of 21st century geopolitics.

Tony is author of Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War from Verso Books.