Summing up the results of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s presidency over the past twenty years, Bloomberg claimed that “one of the most remarkable things” is the his ability to continue extending the country’s global reach “on a shoe-string [domestic] budget”.
With the U.S. injecting more than double in defence than Moscow spends on everything, Russia is “once again a major power in the Middle East and it’s expanding in Africa for the first time in a generation”, according to Bloomberg.
Under Putin, the government’s balance sheet became “one of the healthiest in the world, earning praise from rating agencies and the International Monetary Fund", the news outlet added, referring to the Russian President’s “fiscal prudence”, especially after the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict.
During Putin’s presidency, Russia also managed to restore “some of the geopolitical might wielded by the Soviet Union, irking most of NATO’s 29 nations in the process”.
On top of that, Putin boosted Moscow’s relations with Beijing, reunited Crimea with Russia, “turned the tide of the war in Syria, sold advanced air-defence systems to NATO-member Turkey and reached major arms and oil deals with a key U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, as well as Venezuela," Bloomberg pointed out.
