The rush to privatize everything in Russia came from the West - particularly the US. The US encouraged Yeltsin (who Putin was a protege of) to use tanks to shell Russia's parliament - which was celebrated on US news shows, in government etc.
You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place.
This is a popular Putinist talking point, and like all of his other propaganda vehicles untrue.
No thank you. The fact that you insist specifically on "recent", i.e. decades after actual events and during a very specific political climate makes me 100% sure that there is zero substance.
> capital given freely
You have no idea what you are talking about right? Dude, what capital? The only capital that went through Russia were the investors buying state assets cheap and oligarchs filling their pockets for selling "well fluid" (oil, but not taxed)
(https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117290.pdf, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c..., https://ips-dc.org/aid_to_russia/). Also Warcast from the ISI which recently did a great podcast on the subject.
On the contrary. I actually criticise dismissing all the research except for "recent". And no one actually brought up any numbers.
Sorry, what is your point exactly? It's hard to figure with link-only answers to huge longreads. I've skimmed the first link and didn't find anything contradictory.
The second link provides a quote that doesn't have too much to do with the topic at hand? Did you read every word attentively? I don't understand how a quote about someone on some economic summit making some statements and the US allocating funds for some operations (might as well be as useful as "building sustainable democratic institutes") on ex-USSR (that's not Russia) is not representative of anything.
> Also Warcast from the ISI which recently did a great podcast on the subject.
Sorry, I am sure this podcast has amazing entertainment value, but referring someone to a podcast is akin to referring to a facebook post.
> You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place.
translation: Russians have no agency.
What happned in Russia post USSR is entirely on Russians and Russian culture. You should show more respect to a people and arguably a civilization than painting them as chumps that do the bidding of foreigners to their own detriment. Russia is responsible for Russia's situations. Just like we are responsible for our (equally not optimal lately) situation over in US.
+I have no idea where you get your facts: Yeltsin wasn't "Putin's protege", Putin wasn't Yeltin's protege either. The mayor of St. Petersburg was Putin's patron and he (being powerful) apparently* brokered a deal for transition from Yeltin's clique to his own (and then Putin ran with it). Yeltsin promoted Putin because he got a deal for himself and his family after the transition. That does not make him Putin's protege.
As to the tanks, it's possible CIA called and suggested something. Is this America's fault that Russian politicians overnight turn from fire breathing communist to CIA lapdogs?
Is it really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak
* that's actually wrong. Sobchak was in exile in Paris at that time. So Putin's actual patrons in his rise may have been KGB all along.
Source: i was there.
To relate it solely to or even just directly with privatizing things in the US is not only not necessary, but misleading, especially given the near 1:1 relationship of the de facto world Putin operated in early in his career as compared to what is being exposed to the west about his government's operating style right now.
Russia doling out their biggest companies to their friends turning them into oligarchs was probably a predictable outcome in retrospect. The difference between Russia and the surroundings smaller states was that it was the power center of that entire part of Europe and beyond. That huge amount of backroom power structures (not to mention the KGB) were far larger and not things that were going to fade away easily. It was primed to turn into a pseudo mafia state without proper reforms... By the people themselves, not some foreign overlord (although good advisor's always helps). The responsibility is always ultimately going to rely on people caring internally, as we saw in Afghanistan/Iraq you can't externally prop up democratic/fair organizations without local buy in and local cultural adhesion. So it comes down to what Russia could/would do themselves.
I'm curious what the alternative would have been given Russia's sovereignty. The west not getting involved and pushing raw privatization and not pushing back during the power struggle by the communist factions... I guess it would be more like a modern extreme top-heavy state-capitalism.
So basically China? The oligarchs would have to do their deals via gov annoited monopolies, being run by princelings. Elite party members rather than Oligarchs.
Or maybe best case scenario some top heavy EU style country like Belgium (53%) / France (58%) . Finland (54%) / etc where >50% of GDP is via gov (Russia is currently 36%)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...