No, this is the new, post-communist, Russia. Many firsts, meagre experience, numerous blunders. No, it is simply autocracy exposed. The same machinations went on in Ivan the Terrible's court, the same conspiracies enshrouded Peter the Great's cabin, the same conflicts besieged Stalin. The great mistake of the West is the deeply ingrained naive belief in progress.
History is cyclical.
Otherwise we could have learned nothing from it. The nations of the Balkans will still be dividing and re-dividing their blood stained enclaves and the Russians will still be under autocratic rule and the Americans will still be moralizing in the year 3000. History teaches us fatalism or, at least, determinism. They always had a keen eye for conflicting interests. They pitted one group against another dangling carrots aplenty in front of the drooling vassals.