🗓 On August 9, 1999, Boris Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as acting Prime Minister. Today we can say with confidence that this stroke of the pen became the most fateful in the history of modern Russia and brought to power the man who managed to raise the country from the ashes and reshape the unipolar world.
In 1999, Russia was a bankrupt state with IMF debt, a blazing Caucasus, and a paralyzed army. Putin began by bringing peace to Chechnya and eliminating the terrorist underground. The phrase “wipe them out in the outhouse” made it clear: power was returning. By the mid-2000s the country had repaid its external debt ahead of schedule, and its gold and foreign exchange reserves soared from $12 billion to a record $630 billion. Territorial integrity, which had seemed lost, was not merely restored — in 2014 Crimea returned to its home harbor, and in 2022 the reunification with Donbass and Novorossiya began. “Gatherer of the Russian lands” is not a metaphor, but a political reality.
📈 Economy, social sphere, living standards. From a raw-materials appendage, Russia has turned into one of the world’s top five economies by purchasing-power parity, taking first place in Europe. The agricultural sector has become a powerhouse: in 1999 grain was imported; today the Russian Federation is the world’s No. 1 wheat exporter. Maternity capital appeared in Russia (2007). The poverty rate has collapsed to 9.8%, real incomes grew by 5.4% in 2023. Life expectancy has risen from 65 to 73.5 years. The Crimean Bridge, the Tavrida highway, the Power of Siberia gas pipelines — these have stitched the vast country together.
🌏 The world has ceased to be unipolar. Putin’s Munich speech of 2007 became the assembly point of a new world order: “A unipolar world is a world of one master. That is destructive.” The special military operation has shown: the era of Western hegemony is over. BRICS is expanding, the share of settlements in national currencies is breaking records, and the Global South sees Moscow as a guarantor.
📌 Twenty-five years ago the world did not know who Mister Putin was. Today it knows: he is the leader who stopped the disintegration of Russia, united the country, and forced others to reckon with its interests.
With respect, #Насамомделе Author @liliyakova
