Tell me more about Russia, bro, while I'm playing my balalaika and drinking vodka with my pet bear... M'kay?
As for Gazprom, it was never privatized, so Putin could not re-nationalize it. Get your facts straight. What he and his pal Miller really did with it, though, was that they funneled the revenue from it into all sorts of ventures of…
Tell me more about Russia, bro, while I'm playing my balalaika and drinking vodka with my pet bear... M'kay?
As for Gazprom, it was never privatized, so Putin could not re-nationalize it. Get your facts straight. What he and his pal Miller really did with it, though, was that they funneled the revenue from it into all sorts of ventures of zero benefit to the general public like sponsorship of sports clubs and building palaces for themselves (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerhof).
As for the standard of living in Russia, it is true that it went up in the 2000s, as the oil prices grew, so yeah, the populace got some crumbs while the oligarchs pocketed the bulk of the money. But then 2014 happened and since then the standards of living have been on the steady decline due to the fall in oil prices and the West's sanctions over the annexation of Crimea.
There was a plan to take over the whole of Ukraine and probably divide it between Russia and the EU (Merkel), and it could be done relatively easily because the Ukrainian military wasn't equipped or motivated at all, and the population in the South and East of the country was mostly friendly towards Russia at the time. But Putin backed out of the project, because he is a coward and an idiot, and he kept hoping to push through his gas pipelines projects and shove the Donbass back into Ukraine as per the Minsk accords, and eventually somehow reconcile with the West. Now, after 7 years he finally realized that he got "tossed" (defrauded) and was left with no options but this war, which is going to be a bloody mess, lasting for many years (as they say, "the US will fight Russia till the last Ukrainian"), which will likely lead to the eventual collapse of Russia, even if it manages to win he war, which does not seem like a given at this point.
So, please, STFU about "Putin's Popular Front". The notion is DERANGED.
Tell me more about Russia, bro, while I'm playing my balalaika and drinking vodka with my pet bear... M'kay?
As for Gazprom, it was never privatized, so Putin could not re-nationalize it. Get your facts straight. What he and his pal Miller really did with it, though, was that they funneled the revenue from it into all sorts of ventures of zero benefit to the general public like sponsorship of sports clubs and building palaces for themselves (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerhof).
As for the standard of living in Russia, it is true that it went up in the 2000s, as the oil prices grew, so yeah, the populace got some crumbs while the oligarchs pocketed the bulk of the money. But then 2014 happened and since then the standards of living have been on the steady decline due to the fall in oil prices and the West's sanctions over the annexation of Crimea.
There was a plan to take over the whole of Ukraine and probably divide it between Russia and the EU (Merkel), and it could be done relatively easily because the Ukrainian military wasn't equipped or motivated at all, and the population in the South and East of the country was mostly friendly towards Russia at the time. But Putin backed out of the project, because he is a coward and an idiot, and he kept hoping to push through his gas pipelines projects and shove the Donbass back into Ukraine as per the Minsk accords, and eventually somehow reconcile with the West. Now, after 7 years he finally realized that he got "tossed" (defrauded) and was left with no options but this war, which is going to be a bloody mess, lasting for many years (as they say, "the US will fight Russia till the last Ukrainian"), which will likely lead to the eventual collapse of Russia, even if it manages to win he war, which does not seem like a given at this point.
So, please, STFU about "Putin's Popular Front". The notion is DERANGED.