Russia: The Mask of Success

Russia isn't as nearly as successful as some may think, according to Boris Nemtsov. Kim Zigfeld of the Publius Pundit reviews Nemtsov's analysis of Russia, finding the apparent triumphs of the Putin reign to be nothing more than a failure. Click here to view the article.
Excerpt below:

Nemtsov begins by pointing out that Putin enjoyed an average oil price more than double what Yeltsin had to work with, five times greater in recent months, and that Putin has not used any of the oil windfall to “carry out economic reforms, create a modern army, and establish public health and pension systems.” All but the economy, he says, have degraded, and the economy has merely been “stabilized through a stroke of luck” having nothing to do with Putin.

He shows that there were already clear signs of recovery before Putin came to power, and argues convincingly that the problems Yeltsin’s Russia faced were those of the communists’ making, not Yeltsin’s. As important, he shows that Putin simply didn’t obtain power through policy success; he was named president arbitrarily by Yeltsin, and this was followed by the relentless use of electoral fraud and media suppression to guarantee his election. He writes: “We are all supposed to be over the moon at the success of the economy under Putin. In reality, however, it is not doing that well. Given today’s oil prices, our GDP growth has actually been remarkably modest.”

It seems Russia is sliding back (or already has) to an authoritarian regime, whose State dictates and restricts your conscious. When we look back at this time period twenty years from now, the question will be "Did we do enough to counter Putin?" The answer will be no.

Russia: Where have you gone?

Where I found this article:
The Moderate Voice