This is such a good point.
Putin’s supporters here and elsewhere like to emphasize that Putin brought Russia back from the depths of the 1990s and his authoritarian governance through vote-rigging and assassinations and so on are just the price to be paid for stable progress.
But the measure of success is not where Russia is now versus where it was when Putin took power.
The proper measure is what did Putin achieve given what he had to work with?
Russia’s greatest resource is not its oil and gas and other mineral assets. It is Russia’s people.
Putin isn’t working with the population of Somalia. He was given a highly literate, intelligent population with a culture that highly values science and technology as his resource and he failed utterly to even begin to realize the potential of his people.
Putin is a failure in so many ways.
It would be interesting to see an apples to apples comparison of Russia’s progress in the post-Soviet era versus other ex Soviet states. They all would have started with similar “raw material” but you’d expert to see different outcomes thanks to different leadership.
He did utilize their weakness for corruption, self-dealing and stubbornness, as well as suspicion of outsiders. But it seems it didn’t give him complete control over them. Some of them keep protesting his war, as if they have any say in it. So in one of his latest missives, he talks about uncovering and punishing “traitors,” like spitting out flies that accidentally landed in one’s mouth.
Purges are coming. Just like in the old days, comrades!