Closest they got to ending that cunt was Prigozhin attempting a coup in a drunken rage, but he sobered up and chickened out before it was done.

No. Prigozhin was a spoiler. A demining attempt, because Putin probably got afraid enough of a coup in the military and decided to use Prigozhin to try and detect people in the high command who'd assist Prigozhin or react favorably, or at least not do enough to impede.

Russians keep gravitating towards authoritarians over and over again. Can’t think of any other country that reverted back to it multiple times in a century. Weak people want strong man leaders, just how it is.

Russia has special services. They work all the time, work very well, and "entrapment" is not a problem for them, similar to "fruit of a poisoned tree". When you detect people likely to wish for a change early enough and neutralize them, either by silently jailing or intimidating or disrupting them, the society is much more amorphous.

It's not about gravitating anywhere, wishes or sympathies.