In just over five years, Vladimir Putin will be constitutionally obliged to step down as Russia’s president. Although Putin’s popularity rating remains in the 70–85 percent range, and his reelection to a second term in 2004 seems almost assured, the nature of the post-Putin succession is still hard to foresee. This memo argues that given the continuing absence in Russia of reliable institutional mechanisms to ensure a peaceful transfer of power to opposition forces at the ballot box, 2008 will mark a crucial turning point for Russia’s new democracy—the outcome of which may depend on the degree to which currently inchoate anti-American sentiments among Russia’s younger generation can be mobilized by ambitious Russian political elites.