The Jamestown Foundation is not a good source. They produce simplistic propaganda for the globalist establishment. It’s also very dated propaganda that used Cold War era terminology and concepts with no recognition that the world has changed. By old people, for old people.
Any discussion of Russia that tries to suggest things have gotten worse then since Putin took power compared to how it was before it a joke.
The big decline happened under Yelstin and Putin reversed the decline.
A lot of it picked from recent Ukrainian propaganda which is a pure projection of modern Ukrainian conditions on Russia and blaming the latter’s influence for all of Ukraine’s ills.
That being said Ukraine was at its peak in 1992 which was the last year of so-called ‘Russian occupation’.
They had an economy on par with Poland and population of 52 million people. Today the economy is on par with Zimbabwe and official population figure is about 40 million people which is totally unrealistic with actual figures around 30 million.
Watchung, the writer specifies how the chaos and turmoil of the 90s raised the Russians’ appetite for a Stalinist “strong hand” mechanism of power and their willingness to revert back to Soviet psychological tendencies to cope and re-collectivize around a national idea. She never said things were “better” before Putin.
Economics, specifically Putin-omics is another story. Will expand more later.
But let’s just say in the grand scheme, Putin’s been a bad, not good thing for Russia regardless of a few material perks gained in the 00’s - and that had more to do with lucky oil prices than with his leadership. And if it weren’t for him, they would have gained a whole lot more and be a LOT better off than they are now.