Revisiting the issue concerning the future of Russian statehood

National and regional surveys show that the expert community is dominated by pessimistic assessments concerning the prospects of Russia’s future. The paper discusses the reasons for such a situation. We provide the data on the results of the gubernatorial elections that were held September 9, 2018 and showed that the support for candidates from the United Russia, the current ruling party, has decreased. In addition, we analyze the open data of official reporting of major corporations from five Russian regions; it allows us to draw a conclusion about the existence of legislative conditions in Russia that make it possible for major taxpayers to minimize the tax base, which leads to significant losses of the budgets of constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The paper concludes that it is necessary for the President to make tough decisions aimed at improving the efficiency of the public administration system.