With all the money going into the Ukraine war and other ventures since Putin came to power, I imagine there’s a lot of stuff he could’ve done to make the world a better place and Russia a formidable world power.

  • HobbitFoot
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    7 hours ago

    He would have stepped down in 2008 per constitutional limits.

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          2 hours ago

          The Moscow apartment bombings were carried out in 1999. Putin used them, along with the invasion of Dagestan, to launch the Second Chechen War.

          Alexander Litvinenko blamed Putin and the FSB for the bombings. For that he was infamously assassinated with radioactive polonium.

          If Putin were a “good guy” then none of that would’ve happened either, so he might not have won the 2000 election.

          • HobbitFoot
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            51 minutes ago

            He was the heir apparent to Yeltsin, which might have given him enough power to win the election by himself.

            I agree Putin didn’t start off as a good guy, but I focused more on his continued presence in power and there was a peaceful transition of power between the two Presidents.