alt Hacker NewsI think we in the West underestimate just how severe the '90s were in Russia. You can observe the fall of the USSR by looking at a graph of average life expectancy in Russia, the scale of state failure was really enormous.
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The saddest part is that while the 90s were severe, Russia could have changed for the better.. and the worst part is neighboring countries are suffering along with it.
There was a failure of institutional reform - in fact the only institution that seemed to have reformed was corruption, which changed from one elite to another.
A lot of the current state propaganda tries really hard to spin the narrative "democratic reform never again, look at the 90s"!
Like if democracy is something easy, and plug and play... Or like there's some magical impediment that doesn't allow Russians to go from serfdom to free citizens, as if it's too much for them.
For how many centuries did France iterate to implement democracy? The US had a brutal civil war. Japan had to pick itself up after WW2 and change part of the culture. Germany had to be rebuilt.
Now we're witnessing another upcoming 90s in Russia - who knows if it will be worse since Russia folded into a regional power.
Such a missed opportunity right next to a growing European Union, and China.
COVID dropped US life expectancy by about 2 years.
The Fall dropped Russian life expectancy by six years for males and three years for females.