Could Russia go down a remotely similar path if it kept the SSRs?

If Russia had kept all of its Soviet territories (besides perhaps the Baltic) with a late POD would (or could) it have gone down a similar path? Would it have been likely (or possible) for Putin or someone like him to have taken over? Would it likely have similar social policies? Would it be realistic for there to be Democracy in any capacity? How likely is conflict with the West here? Conflict with China? Reaction to 911 and a Western war in Afghanistan? Will it's relationship with China be changed significantly? How about India, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, or Syria? Would it be able to do better than 292 million people?

And if it does go down a similar path (by having conflict with the West in numerous regions), how would the West respond to a goliath Russian state directly bordering the EU and Middle East?
 
It is not impossible for Russia to keep most of the SSRs. Baltics are flat out with Transcaucasia and Moldova as likely as not. But others were not too determined to go until late 1991. Basicaly it would be a stronger CIS and if the Coup of 19 August 1991 did not happen some kind of new Union Treaty could be reached without ASB intervention. On the one hand it would lessen the impact of losing the Cold War. On the other hand, nationalism would be much much more problematic for this Russia where Russians do not constitute an absolute majority. It is also probably even would not be called Russia - if other republics stayed they would strongly object to this. A Union of Something most likely. In cannot be very centralized until much later, maybe not currently yet.
To be fair I am not counting on it's survival for much long. Even in OTL Russia local elites are pretty much do what they want, unless Moscow directly whack them in the heads. In this union Moscow would be even less effective.
Overall, I think this Russia would be too mired in it's own problems to bother the world on a global scale.
 
It is also probably even would not be called Russia - if other republics stayed they would strongly object to this. A Union of Something most likely. In cannot be very centralized until much later, maybe not currently yet.
To be fair I am not counting on it's survival for much long. Even in OTL Russia local elites are pretty much do what they want, unless Moscow directly whack them in the heads. In this union Moscow would be even less effective.

It would've been called the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics if one wanted to retain the acronym USSR, although the Union of Sovereign States would've been more likely. The 1998 economic crisis would've sorely tested the Union, though.
 
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