Complete and total bullshit, based on US propaganda against Russia. I live in Russia and build my second IT business here. Most of my friends are entrepreneurs from Moscow and other cities.
Of course there is corruption, autocracy and alcoholism. It is there for several hundreds of years, and we have to deal with that. But situation is actually getting better with time. You can't change loves of millions of people in an instant.
Propaganda is an interesting point. In fact, I think it is not strong enough to counter the massive western information war against Russia. I read BBC and NY times regularly, and constantly notice biased and one-sided view.
I think that the author fall victim to the NY Times style propaganda articles about the evil Putin, connected it with his experience and decided to support it. I don'think it is a objective point of view and it does not describe reality.