Nina Khrushcheva: For Russia to move on, so must Putin and his regime

In a recent interview, Russia's president Dmitri Medvedev said he wants a second term in office following the 2012 election, but will not run against prime minister Vladimir Putin, who put him in power in the first place. Such a rivalry, Mr Medvedev implied, would damage the country's well-being and image.

His statement should end speculation about whether he is running, yet it keeps the suspense alive regarding Mr Putin, whose influence is far greater than that of Russia's meek president. Many, would like to see Mr Putin's anti-Western authoritarianism pass from the scene.

Indeed, over the last ten years, Russian foreign policy has been animated by defensiveness and suspicion. Russia has uneasy relations with the non-threatening European Union. It is touchy about the independence of the near-abroad countries, especially those politically or geographically close to the West - Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia. More than a decade after the fact, the Kremlin still decries Nato's eastward enlargement as a security threat.

But it is not Nato's military power that Mr Putin's Kremlin finds alarming; the real threat is the alliance's potential to "swallow" Moldova or Ukraine at some point. Creating a precedent for the democratisation of post-Soviet space is a nightmare scenario for Putin and his cronies.

As in Soviet times, the main task of today's ruling elite - Mr Putin's former KGB associates - is to preserve their tight-knit political and economic regime, built for their personal control and material benefit. Russian foreign policy is, as it was under the Soviets, an extension of official domestic priorities.

The current regime is clearly autocratic. Yet it aspires to democracy in the eyes of Russian citizens and the international community. And so Mr Medvedev participates in world forums, posts Twitter updates, berates corruption, and supports "modernisation" and the "rule of law."

The result is that Russia occupies a unique geopolitical no man's land. A democratic Russia would want to catch up with the West and integrate into Western institutions. Yet this is not in the interests of Mr Putin's backers, who own Russia: its security, military, and industrial complex.

Of course, these people have been personally integrated into Europe for two decades now - their money is in European banks. their holiday villas are in,Tuscany and their children are educated in the poshest boarding schools. Despite the regime's anti-Western rhetoric, they are not interested in closing Russia off. What they do want is to prevent the integration with the West of Russia itself, for that would mean the end of their regime.

But the regime cannot be as authoritarian as Mr Putin might wish. If it were, Swiss banks and international organisations would close their doors.So the regime's backers must maintain its "democratic" side.

The West, despite years of dealing with the Soviets, is still a sucker for Janus-like behaviour, especially now, when Mr Medvedev presents such an endearing democratic face.

US vice president Joe Biden, usually a sharp critic of Russia, arrived in Moscow in March, supposedly to convince Mr Putin to surrender his presidential ambitions. A month later, Mr Biden invited him to visit Washington, though, according to Russia's constitution, the prime minister has no foreign policy role. Does the United States support Mr Putin, or, by recognising his historic importance, do they mean to convince him to leave power? No-one knows.

Until Russia's internal politics change, relations with the West will remain ambiguous. Mr Putin, however, would be well advised to listen to Mr Biden, who is rumoured to have offered him important international positions, such as chairing the International Olympic Committee, or even leading the United Nations. After all, Mr Putin knows the fate of previous KGB functionaries may await him.

In his decade in power, Mr Putin has consolidated and strengthened the security forces, intimidated and jailed opponents, and muzzled the media and courts. If he doesn't allow Russia to move forward, the system he created may turn his own methods against him.

l Nina Khrushcheva, author of Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics, teaches international affairs at The New School and is senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York