USSR — Yeltsin's Russia and the rise of Putin

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Yeltsin's rapid 1992 removal of Soviet price controls and subsidies to force an immediate transition to a market economy, causing severe inflation and hardship.

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Parliament tried to impeach Yeltsin; he ordered tanks to shell the parliament building (White House), killing over 100 — resolved with a new constitution giving the president sweeping powers.

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A 1995–96 scheme where bankers lent the cash-strapped government money in exchange for shares in valuable state companies; when the state defaulted, bankers kept the firms cheaply — this created the oligarchs.

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Oligarch-owned media ran relentless pro-Yeltsin coverage and oligarchs personally funded his campaign in exchange for future favours.

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Russia invaded to crush Chechen independence but was fought to a standstill; the 1996 Khasavyurt Accord saw Russia withdraw, a major humiliation for Yeltsin.

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Launched in 1999 after apartment bombings blamed on Chechen militants, it was led by Putin as prime minister and let him present himself as the strong leader Yeltsin never was — his launchpad to power.

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Putin, barred from a third consecutive presidential term, became prime minister while ally Dmitry Medvedev served as president — widely seen as Putin retaining real power before returning as president in 2012.

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Journalist Anna Politkovskaya (murdered 2006), opposition leader Boris Nemtsov (assassinated 2015), and Alexei Navalny (poisoned 2020, later imprisoned) — all critics of Putin's government.

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He let them keep their wealth if they stayed out of politics; those who defied him, like Khodorkovsky (arrested 2003), lost their companies and freedom.

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Yeltsin allowed regions significant autonomy amid state weakness; Putin reversed this, creating federal districts with his own appointees and stripping governors of national political power.

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Both show Putin using force against former Soviet states drifting toward the West: war with Georgia over separatist regions (2008), and annexation of Crimea plus backing Donbas separatists in Ukraine (2014).

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Rising global oil and gas prices funded rising wages, debt repayment and a growing middle class, contrasting sharply with the economic collapse of the Yeltsin years.