ABSTRACT
In December 1993 Russia ratified its first post-communist Constitution, which in Article 1 proclaimed that it was “a democratic federative rule of law state with a republican form of government”. However, there are now major concerns over the current regime’s commitment to the principles of federalism. As is demonstrated below, the major challenge to the Russian state today is not confederalism or the threat of ethnic disintegration, as was the case during the Yeltsin era, but rather defederalisation and the creation of a centralised and quasi-unitary state under the Medvedev and Putin tandem which has been in power since 2008.
