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The Rise of Putin: Killing Oligarchs, Enacting Genocide, & Poisoning Dissenters
Everyone has been talking about one man lately: Putin. Despite his involvement in Chechnya in 1999, Georgia in 2008, Crimea and Donbas (2014-present day), and Syria (2015), many were surprised by his aggressive expansion into Ukraine — myself included. Who would have thought that Putin would be capable of a full-scale invasion on this scale?
It’s easy to look back at history and look for clues. So, we might as well do that. Where were the clues that Putin would act in such a way? And what brought him to power in the first place?
“The best reason to stop Putin today is perfectly simple: it will only get harder tomorrow.” —Garry Kasparov
The Reformations of Gorbachev
After the economic stagnation of the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union, and the unsuccessful foreign relations policies of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, the subsequent leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev aimed to improve the economic standings of the USSR on the global stage.
Gorbachev dreamed of the industrialized age of the Soviet Union seen in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The USSR’s GDP was outperforming even that of the United States…
