How Putin Made Russia Great Again
© Valeriy Sharifulin
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The propaganda spread by the US always wanted to dismantle Russia piece by piece. But Putin knew it all along and disrupted their plans, restoring Russia's superiority. In his column, a geopolitical analyst S L Kanthan delves in deeper in the origin of Putin's heroic act.
The US has been consumed by virulent Russophobia for a decade, and the entire US establishment demonizes President Vladimir Putin in unison. There is no free speech for American and European presstitutes when it comes to Russia – every journalist, TV anchor, academic and think tank must hate Putin and portray Russia as a threat to the collective West.
Thus, the truth has been buried under sixty feet of propaganda and censorship. The fact is that after the fall of the Soviet Union, globalists fantasized about breaking up Russia further and erasing it from history.
That’s when Putin came, disrupted the American plan, saved Russia, and began the task of restoring the civilizational state to its greatness. Let us look at what has been hidden from much of the public. There are also valuable lessons for India and other countries of the Global South.
The real US-Russia conflict is about geopolitical power struggle for world domination, which involves hundreds of trillions of dollars, massive egos of Machiavellian globalists, and nations driven by memory of the past and visions of the future.
End of History
To understand the psychology of the powers-that-be who rule the West, one must go to 1989 when the USSR started to implode with US-funded revolutions spreading all across Eastern Europe. Even China was not spared, as seen in the Tiananmen Square protests.
That year, an American scholar, Francis Fukuyama, wrote an article titled, “The End of History?” which claimed that American-style capitalism and democracy had decisively won the ideological battle.
The world was going to become a replica of the United States of America. Everyone will drink Coca Cola, buy Nike, watch CNN, drive General Motors, open up their country to Wall Street, and vote for a pro-US candidate. Furthermore, Americans had also just invented the World Wide Web, with which the deep state would monitor and control the entire world. There was no other alternative. It was the end of political history and the beginning of a truly global empire.
This idea was so tantalizing that US elites funded Fukuyama to write an entire book on the same theme three years later.
Shocking Betrayal
All through the world’s history, Empires have rarely dismantled themselves in a peaceful manner. However, the Soviet Union did just that. Demonstrating unprecedented goodwill, Gorbachev and others agreed to end the Cold War and collaborate with the West on architecting a new peaceful future. However, that turned out to be an extremely naive attitude.
The US had no plans to coexist peacefully with a Russia that would still be the largest country on Earth (in terms of area) and one that would still have thousands of nuclear weapons. Nope.
Instead, the US had bigger plans – crush the Russian economy with “shock doctrine,” destroy the Russian military, and dismember the nation forever. To ensure military supremacy, the West also blatantly and repeatedly lied – with “iron-clad” guarantees – to Russian leaders about NATO not expanding one inch eastward in the future.
There was one more strategic imperative to conquer Russia. If Russia falls, China will be the next. Get the bear, you get the dragon, and thus you get the world.
Conquering Russia… From Within
Not only Russian leaders, but Russian people also welcomed the new friendship with America. Everything American was considered wonderful. American TV shows, American products, and American economists took over Russia. What better way to achieve prosperity? However, what happened over the next few years was a planned demolition of unimaginable proportion.
The biggest theft of the century happened in Russia in the 1990s, and the perpetrators were Wall Street shysters who promised miracles of capitalism, but instead dismantled the entire country.
In 1992, the first year of “reforms” introduced by globalists, Russia’s inflation skyrocketed to 2500%. This had a double-whammy effect. One, the price of food and other things went up 25 times. Second, savings of pensioners were wiped out.
What comes after the devaluation of the currency? Selling Russian assets to American and European investors at a discount. In the name of privatization, Russia was put up for fire sale. Everything you can imagine – oil & gas fields, gold & diamond mines, airlines, media, factories etc. – was sold at an infinitesimal fraction of its fair price. A handful of Russians – future oligarchs carefully selected by the US – ended up with assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. In exchange, each Russian got a “share” worth $7. The US taxpayers even subsidized this disgusting racket. It was sheer economic terrorism.
The Mafia in charge of this biggest robbery of the century were known as the Harvard Boys – Larry Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Rubin and others.
To make the long story short, Russia experienced the Great Depression for the next eight years. Hyperinflation, 40% drop in GDP, mass unemployment, widespread poverty, soaring suicides… the reforms turned out to be a satanic shock therapy.
Meanwhile, pro-West oligarchs and traitors such as Mikhail Friedman, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich practically became instant billionaires. Americans like Bill Browder – the anti-Putin warrior behind the Magnitsky Act – also enjoyed the spoils of the plunder.
Under this Western heist, thousands of Russian factories were simply shut down. Even Russia’s production of wheat, oil, and gas fell by half, compared to the Soviet era.
To solve this fake economic crisis, America’s vulture capitalists prescribed more illogical and cruel advice: slash government spending, layoff more workers, and raise taxes. This neoliberal “solution” predictably led to only more misery for most Russians.
In the 1990s, many Russian workers often didn’t get paid for months. There were 2 million Russian children who essentially became orphans; suicide rates among men skyrocketed; and the life expectancy of men fell to 58. Between 1991 and 1999, Russia’s population decreased by 8 million.
In 1998, Russia defaulted on its debt to the IMF and Western financiers. Bank interest rates hit 120%, and the stock market collapsed. (The default itself was bogus because the amount was only about $40 billion, which is nothing compared to the trillions of dollars of natural resources that Russia has). Then to “protect” the value of Ruble, Wall Street forced Russia to sell off all its foreign exchange and gold reserves. When all the reserves were gone… the Ruble still fell 80%.
The Russian military was in shambles and was badly losing wars to Islamic terrorists in Chechnya and Dagestan. Oh, these terrorists were the same Mujahideen from Afghanistan and were still armed by the US. To add insult to the injury, in 1999, the West bombed Serbia – Russia’s staunch ally – and also gave NATO membership to Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic, threatening Russia’s national security.
Who was the clueless leader during those fateful years? Boris Yeltsin, who was surrounded by traitors with allegiance to Washington DC and Wall Street. As Bill Clinton bragged to Tony Blair, he also had tremendous influence over the Russian parliament. And when Boris Yeltsin was about to lose in the 1996 election, Bill Clinton arranged an IMF loan that went into Yeltsin’s campaign coffer; and U.S. campaign experts flew into Russia and engineered a resounding victory for Yeltsin. The U.S. media gloated about the American meddling in Russian politics with titles, “Yanks to the Rescue!” and “Rescuing Boris.”
Putin to the Rescue
Such was the bleak state of Russia when Putin was appointed as the acting President on Dec 31, 1999. And nobody was prepared for what he would accomplish over the next decade or so. He started by removing corrupt oligarchs and taking control of the country.
Putin improved Russia in a holistic, 360-degree way – improving the economy, turbocharging industrial production, bolstering the military, fostering mutually beneficial relations with Europe, cementing strategic partnership with China, re-establishing Russia as a great power, and making Russians proud again. This is why the US hates him so much.
Under Putin, Russian GDP grew whopping tenfold -- from $200 billion in 1999 to over $2 trillion by 2013 – when Russia became the 5th largest economy in the world (by PPP GDP). This is why the globalists orchestrated the Maidan Coup in Ukraine in 2014 and then started to wage vicious hybrid wars against Russia.
Russia under Putin
© Photo
At the same time, Putin brought down inflation, which was wildly out of control in the 1990s — from 2000% in the early 1990s to 120% in 1998 to 2.4% in 2019. Now, even after the extraordinary US/EU sanctions since 2022, Russia’s economy has kept growing and has surpassed Germany as Europe’s largest economy (in PPP GDP).
While the US debt-to-GDP grew from 56% to 125% between 1999 and 2023, Putin did the opposite: he reduced Russia’s debt from 100% to 15% of GDP. There are now 160 countries in the world that have higher debt-GDP ratios than Russia. This is a phenomenal achievement.
Remember that Russia had virtually no foreign exchange reserves and very little gold reserves when Putin took office. He replenished the coffer and made the Russian economy quite immune to downturns and attacks from Wall Street shysters.
Russia now has the 6th largest foreign exchange reserves as well as the 6th largest gold reserves in the world. Yes, the US/EU have illegally confiscated much of Russia’s FOREX, but that money will be eventually returned (with interest).
That Putin has managed to outsmart the richest and most powerful globalists for more than a decade is the best testament to his success. Look at some of the headlines from 2014 to 2016:
Putin Watches Russian Economy Collapse! (Time Magazine, 2014)
Putin Meets Economic Collapse with Purges and Broken Promises (Newsweek, 2015)
For Russia, Oil Collapse has Soviet Echoes (Wall Street Journal, 2016)
Lights Out for the Putin Regime (Foreign Affairs, 2016)
Russia is Seriously Running Out of Cash (CNN, 2016)
Similarly, since the proxy war in Ukraine started, all the gloom and doom predictions by American pundits and politicians have been embarrassingly wrong. “Ruble will turn into a rubble,” famously predicted Biden in 2022.
Under Putin, Russia’s oil production quickly doubled from 1999 to 2015. Russia has also set records in grain production and has become #1 in export of wheat, which again is quite an accomplishment considering where Russia was in 2000 (see chart below from Bloomberg). Putin has also smartly rejected GMO and wants to make Russia the premier exporter of natural and organic food.
Wheat exports U.S - Russia
© Photo
When it came to national security and military, Putin did the impossible. He defeated the CIA-armed jihadists in Chechnya and stabilized Russia. Then he quickly rebuilt the Russian military, which soon produced world-class weapons and even surpassed the US in hypersonic missile technology. Russia’s new fighter jets, tanks and missile defense systems are arguably better than the American counterparts. When the US tried to destroy Syria, Putin intervened and destroyed the NATO-funded terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. Similarly, in Africa, many countries are aligning with Russia and kicking out American and French militaries.
In Ukraine, of course, the Russian military has been singlehandedly facing the entire might of American and NATO weapons, intelligence, spies and mercenaries. This is simply astounding, given that the collective annual military spending of the West is 20-fold bigger than that of Russia.
Finally, while the West has become anti-religion, anti-spirituality and anti-traditionalism, Putin has done the opposite by rejecting Cultural Marxism. Putin has built over 10,000 churches and monasteries in the last decade! Russia has also passed laws to protect children from degeneracy and brainwashing. Russians will no doubt benefit from such efforts in the long run.
Considering the paths that the USA and Europe are on, it will not be hyperbolic to say that Russia might be the savior of Western civilization.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a parade marking Navy Day in St. Petersburg, Russia.
© Sputnik / POOL
/ Putin’s Geopolitical Vision
Above all, Putin is an intellectual and one of the greatest geopolitical minds of modern times. You never see him resort to demagoguery or sensationalism.
He is also extremely disciplined and diplomatic – for example, he always refers to Americans as “our partners,” despite all the deranged and treacherous actions of US elites. Unlike Western leaders who are good at only reading teleprompters, Putin can do long interviews and press conferences – sometimes lasting two hours – without any notes. Putin also hired the smartest people like Sergey Lavrov to handle foreign policy.
Putin is a big-picture visionary as well as a smart tactical person. In 2001, he spoke in front of Germany’s parliament – in fluent German language – and encouraged the Europeans to forget the Cold War and work towards a new security architecture.
Later, Putin developed trusted relations with numerous European leaders such Schroder, Merkel, Berlusconi and others. Then, Russia worked with Europe to build a vast network of oil/gas pipelines. Good trade is the foundation of peace… unless it is sabotaged by an empire of chaos. That Europe ended up as a spineless vassal of the US was beyond Putin’s control.
In 2007, at the Munich Conference, Putin sternly warned against NATO expansion and warned about the dangers to Europe’s security. Of course, European puppets listened but did nothing. Later, Putin admonished the US over missile deployments, unilateral withdrawal from treaties, inviting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO etc.
Over the last two decades, Putin has successfully played defense against a myriad of subversive attacks by the US. For example, the US blocked many potential Russian pipelines and coerced many European countries to turn down win-win deals. Putin successfully saved the TurkStream pipelines and avoided the American trap for hostility with Turkey. When the US tried to drive a wedge between Russia and Japan, Putin met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe twenty times to try to end all the residual conflicts between the two nations. As for the Nordstream pipelines that have been blown up by the rogue American Empire, they could hopefully be built again in the near future.
The deep friendship between Putin and Xi Jinping is not a marriage of convenience, but rather a long-term partnership for a multipolar world. The two leaders have met more than 40 times. Just two months after being inaugurated as the President in 2000, Putin went to China to solidify Russia-China relations. Why? Because Putin understood the biggest trend of the 21st century – the rise of Asia. He envisioned the rise of China, when the US media were busy writing endless articles about the impending collapse of China. To establish a long-term customer for Russia’s immense energy, Putin embarked on massive projects of gas pipelines to feed China.
Similarly, Putin has maintained a solid relationship with India, which has become a significant buyer of Russian oil over the last two years. Another remarkable diplomatic achievement is how Putin turned around the Russia-Saudi relations. Now, Saudi Prince MBS is a good friend of Putin, and they work together in the OPEC+ setting. This is quite stunning, considering that during the Cold War, Saudi Arabia played a key role in attacking the USSR by deliberately bringing down the oil price in the 1980s.
Putin is very popular all over the developing nations from Asia and Africa to Latin America. Even in Europe, many political groups support Russia and Putin, but the beautiful garden of Europe is brutally oppressing free speech and democratic processes. The recent assassination attempt on Robert Fico, Slovakia’s relatively pro-Russia Prime Minister, is a star reminder of how ruthless these globalists are.
Conclusion
This presidential term will be the most consequential for Vladimir Putin. He has the opportunity to leave behind a lasting legacy for Russia and the world.
The first goal is, of course, survival. The evil American empire is waging a proxy war that presents an existential crisis for Russia. Thus, Putin must decisively win this battle and permanently neutralize the Ukrainian threat. This is a formidable military and geopolitical challenge.
Second, Putin must work with Xi Jinping and other BRICS+ leaders to defeat the American Empire without WW3. Here is how to do it:
Expand BRICS to bring in all the large and strategic economies of the Global South
Create a BRICS currency and related financial tools that present robust alternatives to US dollar and SWIFT (in other words, dedollarization)
Work with India, China and other Asian countries to develop a manufacturing base that enables any country to be completely independent of American goods
In summary, present an option for countries to be resilient and unafraid of US sanctions
Then… all those countries should dump US treasuries in unison.
During his recent visit to China, Putin presented a holistic vision of a multipolar world. It was compelling and logical -- a picture of a democratic global community of equal partners that is focused on development, infrastructure, trade and connectivity, while peacefully following international rules and respecting civilizational diversity.
That sounds not only wonderful but is the only way forward. We are on the brink of welcoming a whole new chapter of history, which did not end in 1989.
--- S.L. Kanthan
