He was succeeded by Vladimir Putin, a little-known former KGB colonel who had rocketed to popularity in the months before as the architect of the second Chechnya war. Putin was elected decisively to a four-year term in March 2000. The Russia Putin inherited is a mass of numerous, often contradictory, trends. On the one hand, Yeltsin bequeathed the new president a formal constitutional democracy with regular elections, unprecedented tolerance for civil liberties, and a relatively benign foreign policy. On the other hand, by almost every measure, Russia is economically, morally, and socially in crisis.
Crime is widespread, and the population is declining, a large part of it living in poverty.
Popular support for democracy and free markets, as understood in the West, is ebbing. Meanwhile, traditional Russian and Soviet values, such as the close relationship between money and political power and the personalization of authority, continue. In particular, its depiction of the Clinton administration's conduct of relations with Russia forms a damning portrait of arrogance and mismanagement. Moreover, its assertion that the Bush administration could have done better is not clearly supported by what took place during its four-year term. As a result, the appeal of the US as a model for reform has faded, and anti-US sentiment is strong.