> I have always found Stratfor.com to be a bit odd - they almost never get
> Russia "right"
Except for one case, long ago -- they were by far the first people to get Putin right. They identified him as the representative of the "progressive reforming wing of the KGB" and largely predicted his victory over Yeltsin and the oligarchs within three days of his being appointed prime minister, when absolutely everyone else saw him as Y's latest puppet. And they never strayed from that interpretation over the next two years until everyone else caught on. Then they went straight downhill.
Unfortunately, afaict, that was the only thing they got right besides Kosovo. They were pretty good on those two things, though. The Slavworld analyst world wrote them must have skipped out them after shortly afterwards.
MIchael