Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to predict an improvement in the power structure of the Russian system. At the same time articles like these tend to be fairly one-sided. If you read Foreign Affairs, for example, there are more likely to be glowing accounts of the rapid rate of economic progress taking place in Russia today. There are quite a good number of comparable workplace sectors compared with Estonia, where wages are in fact considerably higher than here. Russia also has the enormous advantage of natural resources to an extent which far outstrips her European neighbours. And this is a worry for the EU....a worry which is complicated all the more by the strengthening of the FSB and other social control mechanisms. . All in all Russia has many advantages which can be overlooked by ignoring them, but ultimately they haunt both the EU and Russia’s near-abroad.

I think the whole point of the article is to show that it was one of Putin's closest and most important advisers who sees the abscence of democracy and the comparitive deterioreation of the Rissian economy as the army, police and secret services get the boost in size and importance. It's not written by a westerner.