Applying the concept of Stato to Russia is problematic. So is operating with concepts like court, parliament, opposition, media, public opinion, trade unions, parties. Even “Russian society,” if we mean the people physically located in Russia, is not self-evident. Under authoritarianism certain social institutions continue to exist, and to exist as subjects. In the Russian case, the subjecthood of institutions is the central problem, including the subjecthood of the “president of the Russian Federation” himself.
Russia is not simply a “weak state” or a “hybrid regime” in the standard sense. It is a specific and arguably unique type of political formation, poorly described by the vocabulary of comparative political science that grew out of European material. And it mimics a traditional state so strongly that external and even internal observers remain under the spell of the illusion.
My experience is the experience of contact with senior officials and their families, with the church hierarchy, with the military and security ranks. When the concept of “state” is used for Russia, I wince at the mismatch between the term and the opaque, enigmatic political reality I observed while living there.
Only the most perceptive analysts and researchers attempt to find a terminology that would adequately describe a construction as non-standard and enigmatic as the contemporary Russian Federation.