Is Vladimir Putin successful?
Saad Khan, lives in Saudi Arabia
You rule a country of 140,000,000 million people with a GDP of around 1 trillion dollars and your approval ratings are on average of 90%. What are you? You are successful, so is Vladimir Putin.
Contrary to what the West speaks about Putin, he is a highly successful person. He did the following:
- It’s the economy, durak!
When Putin arrived in office, Russia was just emerging from the disastrous market reforms of the 1990s and the 1998 financial crisis. The new president had no grand economic vision: while he slashed taxes to benefit business, he also renationalised key sectors, starting with the breakup of political foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos oil company in 2003. Nonetheless, unused manufacturing capacity and rising prices for oil, Russia’s main export, helped usher in an era of unprecedented prosperity that Putin is still remembered for, with real disposable income doubling between 1999 and 2006.The global financial crisis brought this growth crashing to a halt. While oil wealth had stimulated growth, little progress had been made in diversifying the economy or modernising Russia’s industries. Even before oil prices dropped and western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis came into effect in 2014, economists were predicting long-term stagnation.Although Putin recently called his government’s response to the rouble crisis of late 2014 “optimal”, many blame the central bank’s sudden interest rate rises and a shady bond issue by state oil company Rosneft for sinking the national currency.As former finance minister Alexei Kudrin reminded Putin during the president’s annual call-in show in April, the 7% annual GDP growth at the end of his first presidential term fell to just 0.6% in 2014, and the country’s economy is expected to enter recession this year. Not a great result for a man whose initials – VVP – stand for GDP in Russian.
- REFORM OF THE ARMY AND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
After the Soviet Union broke up, the military was abandoned and got weak. Putin strengthened and reformed the military under his rule.
Igor Korotchenko, chief editor of "National Defense" magazine:Today we have qualitatively new armed forces. It is no exaggeration to say that today our army is one of the best in the world. It is recognized by all, including our opponents. It is under Putin, that our armed forces again became respected. Over the past 15 years we've been through a restructuring of the military-industrial complex. On the initiative of the President powerful vertically integrated holding companies were created, each of which brings together the entire chain of developers and manufacturers. As a result, Russia ranks second in the world in the export of weapons.
- Population growth
Putin took over a country whose population was falling at an alarming rate. Russia – a population of about 150 million people at time of the fall of the Soviet Union – was losing people at a rate of almost a million a year, a combination of a reluctance to procreate and a proclivity, from men at least, to die young.But the decline gradually bottomed out, and in 2010 the population started growing again. The secret to this reversal was largely economic: as their financial situation improved during Putin’s reign, Russians began having more children. According to the state statistics service, the country now has more than 146 million people, up from 142 million in 2008. Even if you don’t count the 2.2 million people it gained by annexing Crimea, it’s still a positive trend.
- STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF RUSSIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA
Mikhail Panchenko, political scientist:Over the last fifteen years from a country ranking in the twenties-thirties by the degree of influence on world politics, we confidently moved into the top three - along with the US and China. The first ideological imperatives were laid down in the Munich speech of Vladimir Putin in 2007. But the first "applied" case when we showed iron will took place in August 2008 in South Ossetia. In essence Russia then stood up and said: "Tomorrow we will live by new rules!"
Along with that, they took part in Syria and successful stopped the Assad regime from toppling and gained foothold in Syria. They annexed Crimea in 2014 from Ukraine too. Also, they are getting involved in negotiations and are able to do so on an international level (Astana Peace Deal on Syria).
- New-found sporting prestige
The Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 were a triumph for Putin, who had campaigned aggressively to host the event. Russia won the medal count with 13 golds, and no major security breaches or organisational embarrassments – besides a few unfinished hotel rooms – marred the event. Joined by faded action star Steven Seagal, Putin later presided over a Formula One race held on a course built around the Olympic park, and in 2018, the country will host the Fifa World Cup.
He is indeed successful and in future, he will prove it again.
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