In attempting to determine whether the most recent economic crisis or that of 1998 is more damaging for the Russian economy it is important to acknowledge, preliminarily, that these two crises are different. The international economic, political and strategic contexts in which they occurred were different; the origins were different; the triggers were different; the indirect victims are different; and, most importantly for this analysis, the recoveries were and will be different.
There is widespread acknowledgement that Putin’s federal reforms have had considerable success in subordinating regional authorities to the will of central government. And undoubtedly, Putin believed that such reforms were a necessary aspect of reigning in the “emotionalism” and resultant chaos of the Yeltsin years.
