Short answers, pulled from the story.
Andrey Piontkovsky coined the term in an article published on the 11th of January 2000 in Sovetskaya Rossiya, the same day it appeared on the Yabloko party's website. He described it as "the highest and final stage of bandit capitalism in Russia."
Olga Kryshtanovskaya's 2004 study found siloviki made up 25 percent of Russia's political elite overall. The share rose to 58 percent inside Putin's inner circle, fell to 18-20 percent in Parliament and 34 percent in the government, and reached 77 percent once officials affiliated with the KGB and FSB were included.
Most experts conclude Putin's Russia is not fascist, since it lacks the mass mobilization and revolutionary drive of Hitler's or Mussolini's regimes. Some, including historian Timothy Snyder and scholar Marcel Van Herpen, argue it contains strong fascist elements, with Van Herpen labeling it "Fascism-lite."
Following a referendum, Putin signed an executive order on the 3rd of July 2020 inserting amendments into the Russian Constitution, which took effect the next day. Analysts Vladimir Pastukhov and Alexander Podrabinek said the amendments pushed Russia toward totalitarianism by seizing control of public and private life.
Far-right figures including France's Marine Le Pen, Italy's Matteo Salvini, and parts of Germany's Alternative for Germany have drawn links to Putin. On the left, French politician Jean-Luc Melenchon and German politician Sahra Wagenknecht have both faced accusations of Kremlin sympathy.
Putinism has been described as neo-Soviet, restoring a memorial plaque to KGB chief Yuri Andropov in June 1999 and readopting the Soviet national anthem's melody with new lyrics in late 2000. Putin has separately called the Soviet Union's collapse "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."