This is an essay by Andrey Melnichenko, one of the richest Russians. He's mostly stayed out of politics, until now. Now he's worried about the future of Russia. He sees four possible paths, all either bad or very bad. None lead to a democratic Russia.

This is one of the more insightful views of the future of the world. This is someone who trained as a physicist, yet made his money by focusing on the fertilizer and used pipe industries after the USSR went down. (Essential industries, and mostly ignored by others with political power.) A very practical business type, knows everybody important from Putin on down, and looks at the future as a failure analysis problem.