When Putin departs from power, the role Russian may very well expand, Aleksandr Verkhovsky says; and the sooner the Kremlin leader does so, the larger that role is likely to be at least in the short run. That is because those known as Russian nationalists are far better positioned to play a role than were their predecessors.
At the end of a survey of how difficult it is to define Russian nationalism and how much the consensus view as to what it consists of has evolved, the director of the SOVA analytic center which tracks this phenomenon offers his thoughts on what is likely to happen in the future when Putin leaves the scene (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2024/09/13/kto-vy-russkie).
A major reason behind his conclusion that Russian nationalism will likely play a larger role then is that this trend of opinion has evolved under the impact of what one could call “the present-day official ideology of a unique brand of nationalism, which the powers have advanced........