Can authoritarian Russia be a tech giant? If the money’s right

CHRYSTIA FREELAND

The Russians are coming. So far, the invaders are both welcome and unexpected – these aren’t the Cold War comrades who aspired to geopolitical domination or the first wave of oligarchs with their treasure chest of natural resources. These Russians propose to conquer the world’s new frontier – the Internet – and they are every bit as cocky as their forebears.

In the case of Russia, we may be discovering that authoritarianism and invention can co-exist more easily than liberal democrats might hope. That is largely because Prime Minister Putin’s genius has been to devise a form of government you might call authoritarianism lite.

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