Sharu said:
Its a hard question. When they was stealing the country our people was cheated by our authorities, and then was too weak. You know, when your main problem is where to get money for food - you don't think about politics. 90s was a very hard times for our country. Then in the start of 2000 everything start getting better. And still getting better - maybe not so good as we want but still! ) |
Part of it was of course that Western banks colluded to allow it, most all those shady deals were enabled by off-shore bank accounts in Switzerland, etc. During the whole period, the West was hugely favorable to Yeltsin, never mind that he was lording over the most intense corruption ever, and doing dubious stuff like getting army to fire on the Parliament when they wouldn't go along with his agenda... That's democracy, baby. None of that threatened the fundamental interests of the West since they were making money off the whole thing, and you can work with gangsters. The West sabotaged products of Russia like airliners, restricting cooperation on re-engining, which would otherwise compete with Boeing/Airbus. With the rug pulled out from under the system, and crooks able to steal money using the Western financial system, regular people could only survive.
