Putin Is Grooming a New Generation to Preserve His Legacy

Just before Christmas, at a nighttime ice hockey game on a rink in Red Square, Vladimir Putin scored again and again. Not that his opponents tried too hard to stop him. The match included many of the president’s inner circle, from political allies and ex-bodyguards promoted into government to old friends who’ve grown fabulously rich during his two-decade rule.

The Kremlin has ensured that Putin, 65, faces equally toothless opposition in March’s presidential election as he seeks to extend his rule to 2024 with a fourth and likely final term. His biggest challenge will be to build a team and a system capable of sustaining Putinism after he’s left office. “Putin’s greatest fear is that everything will collapse as everyone starts to fight each other,” says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who studies Russia’s ruling elite at the State University of Administration in Moscow. “It’s a huge risk.”