Another step toward V. Putin's "long state"

In January of 2020, Russian President V. V. Putin delivered an annual Address to the Federal Assembly and announced a number of significant proposals in order to change the Constitution of the Russian Federation. There were broad discussions about the proposed amendments and changes of the entire Russian political system, internal and external aspects of public administration, which they entail, in the socio-political space. This article presents the author’s view on this issue. The researchers analyzeV. Putin’s main historical steps, which have been determining the vector of the development of post- Soviet statehood over the past 20 years. The authors review the President’s program articles, his public speeches, public meetings, his key decisions in foreign and domestic policy, strategic system documents, etc. The authors conclude that V. Putin has been consistently building the framework of a new Russian statehood throughout all his presidential terms. He publicly and extensively described the contours of this system in his first program article “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium” (1999). The article also includes the analysis of expert evaluations of the motives of the 2020 Presidential Address; the examination of the implementation of national projects and the National Security Strategy, for which V. Putin took personal responsibility in 2015; statistical data, describing the state of affairs in the areas of demography and health, science and education, economic growth and population’s quality of life over the past 30 years. The results of the study allow us to say that the President’s initiatives, aimed at the transformation of the country’s entire political system, are largely forced. It is a necessary condition for the completion of the goal, set by him in 1999, until the end of his presidential term, limited by the current Constitution of the Russian Federation - the creation of a strong, independent social state with a stable political system, which effectively adapts to internal and external challenges.