It’s December 31, 1999. Savage Backyard is dominating world music charts and rugby followers are celebrating the Wallabies’ World Cup win.
The fallout from Australia’s failed republic referendum is boiling away as everybody sweats on one thing referred to as the Y2K software program bug.
Elsewhere, a person many individuals have by no means heard of — Vladimir Putin — is sworn in as Russia’s caretaker president.
Leap ahead to 2025: Savage Backyard broke up 20 years in the past, and the Wallabies have simply misplaced each match on their current European tour (even to Italy).
The republic debate has been consigned to the historical past books. Fears of ringing within the new millennium with a large laptop meltdown are long-forgotten.
And Putin? Today, just about everybody is aware of who he’s.
Vladimir Putin has a world arrest warrant out towards him for alleged struggle crimes, which makes journey overseas troublesome. (Reuters: Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool)
King of his remoted fortress
Putin has towered over politics in Russia since ascending to the nation’s prime workplace, initially as president for eight years, then as prime minister whereas that pesky factor referred to as the structure was altered to permit him to run once more.
And since 2012, the president’s workplace is the place he has stayed — as of late, that line can virtually be taken actually: Putin has a world arrest warrant out towards him for alleged struggle crimes, which makes journey overseas troublesome.
With each “election” (if that’s what we’re to name the fraud-fests Russia specialises in), the 73-year-old’s victory margin balloons to much more fantastical ranges.
Final yr, official outcomes claimed Putin gained greater than 88 per cent of the vote. That made-up determine can be extra spectacular, after all, if a lot of the president’s main political opponents had not been barred from operating.
Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a doubt that Putin stays widespread in Russia.
Russia’s financial system grew steadily every year after Vladimir Putin got here to workplace — till 2014. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
A well-liked chief
He took over as president from Boris Yeltsin, who had led the nation into capitalism after the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
However eight years later, for a lot of Russians, life was worse. Extreme inflation and a struggling financial system meant their earnings was down in actual phrases.
Yeltsin, battling alcoholism, had begun slurring his phrases throughout some public appearances and was turning into an rising supply of nationwide embarrassment.
Corruption was rife. Because the Soviet Union dissolved, communism had given approach to a kleptocracy. Non-public consumers snapped up beforehand state-owned property — the delivery of a ruling Russian class we now consult with because the oligarchs.
Yeltsin, who had championed democracy, was dealing with allegations that he had rigged the 1996 presidential election. His well being was deteriorating, so he hand-picked a successor who wouldn’t prosecute him.
Enter Putin.
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Putin’s rising energy
Russia’s financial system grew steadily every year after Putin got here to workplace, till 2014 — it has gone backwards since then.
Up to now two-and-a-half many years, he has created an influence vertical within the nation the place all people from regional governors to the prime minister solutions to him.
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