Yeltsin was more than happy to let American capitalists buy out Soviet industry and resources at fire sale prices. He was, as you can see by the GDP numbers as well as other metrics like excess deaths and life expectancy, absolutely horrible for the Russian people, but Washington never cares about the people so he’s still upheld as a positive figure in the west. Putin was picked, with input from powerful people in the US, as a successor to Yeltsin, but then took a more resource nationalist and import substitution track which means Wall Street can’t get rich off Russian production. (Ironically this is how western empires were built.) He tried for about eight years to get into the US’ good graces but finally realized in 2008 that Russia will never be an equal partner in anything the US empire does.
In a manner of speaking, yes.
Yeltsin was more than happy to let American capitalists buy out Soviet industry and resources at fire sale prices. He was, as you can see by the GDP numbers as well as other metrics like excess deaths and life expectancy, absolutely horrible for the Russian people, but Washington never cares about the people so he’s still upheld as a positive figure in the west. Putin was picked, with input from powerful people in the US, as a successor to Yeltsin, but then took a more resource nationalist and import substitution track which means Wall Street can’t get rich off Russian production. (Ironically this is how western empires were built.) He tried for about eight years to get into the US’ good graces but finally realized in 2008 that Russia will never be an equal partner in anything the US empire does.