Rina Lu🇷🇺 Profile picture
Jan 23 5 tweets 8 min read Read on X
How Putin made Russia Great Again or why Russians love him so much

(very long 🧵)

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia became a colony of the West and lost its sovereignty. During the 1990s and under Yeltsin’s government, the country nearly fell apart. The military and industries across all sectors were destroyed, school textbooks were rewritten, and resources were sold off to Western corporations. It’s a serious question whether Russia would even exist today if things had continued that way. However, with Putin’s arrival, everything changed - he brought Russia back to itself.

Bio

Few in the West know about Putin’s mentor, Anatoly Sobchak, who introduced him to politics. Sobchak was a strong supporter of liberal-democratic ideas and one of the founders of the “Democratic Russia” party.

In the early 1990s, Vladimir Putin worked as an assistant to the rector of Leningrad State University for international affairs.
This position served as a cover, as he was an active KGB agent. When Sobchak noticed him at the University and invited him to join his team, Putin had to admit his work in intelligence. Realizing that combining KGB work with political activity was impossible, he resigned from the KGB.

In June 1991, Sobchak became the mayor of St. Petersburg. During the tense political environment of the time, from 1993 onward, Sobchak often entrusted Putin to act as mayor during his foreign trips, showing great trust in his professionalism. However, starting in 1995, a campaign to discredit Sobchak began, organized by his political opponents in Moscow who viewed him as a potential rival for the presidency. Using accusations of misconduct, law enforcement agencies like the Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the FSB effectively ended his political career. His worsening health worked to his enemies’ advantage, reducing his ability to defend himself. At one point, they even tried to block him from traveling abroad for medical treatment.

x.com/rinalu_/status…
Putin’s Loyalty Over Political Ambition

At this critical moment, Putin showed complete loyalty to his mentor, Sobchak. He knew that helping Sobchak leave the country involved serious risks to his own career. First, he was going against powerful state agencies that were actively pursuing Sobchak. If the plan failed, Putin could have been accused of aiding or hiding him. Second, Sobchak was a political outsider at the time, and supporting him could have been seen as a strategic mistake, alienating influential allies in Moscow. Third, successfully getting Sobchak out of the country under the strict control of the FSB, prosecutors, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs required extreme caution. It could have been seen as breaking the law, threatening not just Putin’s career but also his personal freedom.

Despite these risks, Putin, using skills from his intelligence background, arranged for Sobchak to leave for France, where he underwent life-saving surgery. This act was a remarkable display of loyalty and courage. After the operation, Putin reported the outcome to Yeltsin, who, after a pause, approved his actions, saying, “You did the right thing.” This moment highlighted not only Putin’s loyalty to Sobchak but also his willingness to take risks for his principles and a sense of justice, which later became a defining feature of his political career.Image
The Turning Point: Russia’s New Year of Change

Since Christmas is a religious holiday in Russia, New Year’s Eve is celebrated similarly to how Christmas is in the West. A New Year’s tree is set up, and children receive gifts from Ded Moroz, the Russian Santa Claus, on the night of December 31st to January 1st. The celebration begins with a televised speech by the president, followed by the countdown to the chimes of the Kremlin clock, Russia’s main timepiece.

Back then, everyone anticipated Boris Yeltsin’s New Year address. By the 2000s, however, Yeltsin could barely speak. He was widely seen as a hopeless alcoholic, mocked by the Russian people and even by foreign leaders like Bill Clinton. Russians felt ashamed of their president, who had become a national embarrassment.

But instead of Yeltsin’s familiar face on TV, a young man appeared. Calm, polite, and well-spoken, he explained that Yeltsin had stepped down due to health reasons, and until the elections in the spring, he would take on presidential duties. He wished everyone a Happy New Year, and for the first time in a while, there was a sense of hope in the air.

When the elections came, people voted for this young man, Vladimir Putin, and he became president. Almost immediately, he introduced significant changes, particularly regarding the oligarchs who had gained immense political influence in the 1990s during the privatization of state enterprises under Yeltsin.

After the collapse of the USSR, several waves of privatization swept through Russia, leaving the nation’s wealth in the hands of a few. While ordinary Russians suffered from a sharp decline in living standards, barely scraping by, the business clans born in the chaos of perestroika solidified their control over the most valuable assets of what was once a great country.
The End of the Oligarch Era: Putin’s Economic Revolution

Putin made it clear that the era of oligarchs dictating terms to the state was over. He demanded they pay taxes and end tax evasion practices, including the widespread use of offshore schemes popular in the 1990s. One symbolic example of this crackdown was the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his oil company, Yukos, which became a landmark in the fight against tax evasion. Following this, many companies began significantly increasing their tax contributions to the state budget.

Putin also expected major businesses to invest in infrastructure, social services, and regional development. For instance, after Putin took office, Roman Abramovich invested heavily in developing the Chukotka region, where he served as governor. Other businessmen were also required to fund the construction of schools, hospitals, roads, and other public facilities.

Oligarchs were instructed not only to avoid political involvement but to publicly support Kremlin policies, including major state initiatives and foreign policy. Funding opposition movements was strictly forbidden, and compliance was seen as essential for maintaining their businesses.

The state also involved oligarchs in national priorities, such as the 2014 Sochi Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Companies owned by oligarchs often became contractors for these large-scale projects, investing significant resources.

Putin demanded the return of assets and capital taken abroad in the 1990s. This included repatriating funds from offshore accounts and relocating companies under Russian jurisdiction. Under pressure from the Kremlin, some oligarchs moved their assets to Russian banks or registered them in Russia.

Strategic industries like oil, gas, and metallurgy were brought under state control or placed in the hands of Kremlin-loyal structures. Oligarchs managing major resources were required to align their activities with state interests.

Not all oligarchs agreed with these new rules. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of Yukos, refused to pay taxes on his company’s profits. Under Khodorkovsky, the Rothschilds gained influence over Russian oil. Putin not only jailed him but also nationalized Yukos, redirecting its revenues to the Russian budget instead of foreign hands. After serving his sentence, Khodorkovsky moved to Britain, where he launched campaigns to discredit Putin and funded Russian newspapers critical of the government. Many of these outlets were labeled foreign agents in 2022. Btw, Khodorkovsky was invited and he also attended Trump’s inauguration 2 days ago.

Boris Berezovsky, another prominent oligarch, made billions through ventures like “Logovaz” (car sales) and co-ownership of “Sibneft” with Abramovich. His activities caused significant harm to the Russian economy. Understanding the power of media, he owned newspapers and held shares in the ORT television channel. Berezovsky was suspected of involvement in the murders of journalist Paul Klebnikov, who wrote the book “Godfather of the Kremlin”, and TV host Vladislav Listyev. His commercial ties allegedly extended to organized crime groups and Chechen militants, with claims that he profited from the release of hostages held in Chechnya.

When Berezovsky refused to accept the new rules in Russia, he fled to London, where he called for a “violent overthrow of power” in Russia.

Other oligarchs, including Vladimir Gusinsky, Evgeny Chichvarkin, Sergey Pugachev, Alexander Lebedev, Roman Abramovich, Leonard Blavatnik, Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven, and Alexander Smolensky, faced similar outcomes.

In the end, Putin returned control of strategic industries—oil, gas, and metallurgy—to the state. Many assets held by oligarchs were nationalized or transferred to companies that prioritized Russia’s interests. These changes redirected investments into the country’s development rather than draining wealth into offshore accounts, strengthening the nation’s economy.
Now, let’s look at the achievements of Putin’s presidency in numbers.

🔷 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) increased by 930%.

🔷 The national external debt was reduced by 75.2%.

🔷 In 2024, Russia ranked first in Europe and fourth in the world for GDP (PPP). According to the IMF, Russia’s share of global GDP (PPP) reached 3.55%, surpassing Japan’s 3.38%.

🔷 Between 1999 and 2024, Russia’s gold reserves experienced significant growth by approx 580%, reaching 2332 tonnes.

🔷 International reserves increased over 5,000%, reaching $609 billion.

🔷 Federal budget revenue increased 45 times to 36.72 trillion rubles.

🔷 Major international events were held: the Sochi Olympics (2014) and the FIFA World Cup (2018).

🔷 Increased funding for culture, cinema, and scientific research.

Education and Science

🔷 National education projects contributed to the modernization of schools and universities.

🔷 Only from 2019 to 2023, 900 new schools were built. Overall number for the last 25 years is much higher. Additionally, every year more than 1,000 schools undergo major renovations. By the end of the five-year period, more than 7,300 educational institutions, including those in rural and small towns, will have been updated.

🔷 Russia remains a leader in space exploration, continuing missions with Soyuz spacecraft and developing new technologies.

Industry and Economy

🔷 Industrial production grew by 60%.

🔷 Manufacturing increased by 70% by 2019; in 2024, it grew an additional 7.2%.

🔷 Agricultural product exports grew 19 times to $25 billion.

🔷 Grain exports grew 40 times, reaching 50 million tons.

🔷 Over the past 17 years, Russia has opened 200 to 500 new factories, workshops, and enterprises annually.

Social Progress

🔷 Real wages increased 3.5 times. This reflects real growth for the entire population, accounting for inflation and other factors, not just for select groups.

🔷 The average monthly pension increased by 30 times.

🔷 Unemployment decreased by 65%, dropping to 4.6%.

🔷 Average life expectancy rose to 73 years (for men, from 59 to 68.5 years; for women, from 72 to 78.4 years).

🔷 Free Healthcare and Education

Family support

🔷 Financial support to families upon the birth or adoption of their second and subsequent children

🔷 Employed parents can take up to 3 years of parental leave

🔷Housing Support: Special programs provide discounts on mortgage interest rates for families with children

🔷 Families with children are entitled to tax deductions, including reduced income tax for working parents

🔷 Families raising children with disabilities receive additional financial assistance, including monthly care payments

Military and Security

🔷 Russia’s military is considered one of the strongest globally, ranked either first (U.S. News & World Report) or second (Global Firepower Index).

🔷 Crime rates, including murders, assaults, and robberies, decreased by 53% during Putin’s presidency. The homicide rate dropped by 74%.Image

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More from @rinalu_

May 7
“Night Witches”: Heroines of the Sky in the WW2

During World War II, there was a badass group of Soviet women pilots called the “Night Witches.” They flew old, slow wooden planes at night and dropped bombs on enemy positions. Most of them were young girls, students with no combat experience when the war started. But they became legends.

These women pulled off 8–9 missions a night, manually loading bombs that weighed up to 300 kg each. Over one shift, a single pilot could carry over a ton of explosives. And they did it all under heavy enemy fire: searchlights, anti-aircraft guns, etc.Image
Their planes, called Po-2 (originally U-2), were developed in 1927. You might know them by their nickname, “Kukuruznik”- they got it because after the war they were used in farming to dust crops.

By 1941, these planes were completely outdated and were originally used just for training. But someone realized they could actually work for light bombing runs at night, and here’s why.

The U-2 was so slow, about 120 km/h, that it could be shot down with a regular rifle. Flying one of these things in daylight over enemy territory would’ve been a death sentence. The planes had zero protection: no armor, no real weapons but they were they could glide almost silently.

The pilots would cut their engines just before reaching the target, letting the plane drift silently over enemy positions. The only sound was the soft “whoosh” of the wind over the wings, like a broomstick flying through the air.

That’s actually how they got their nickname:

“Night Witches” or Nachthexen (German) from terrified German soldiers who said they sounded like broomsticks in the dark.

The psychological effect was massive:
🔸Germans were afraid to sleep at night.
🔸Anti-aircraft crews were constantly on edge, trying to spot a ghost in the sky.
🔸And imagine the humiliation: being attacked night after night by young women in outdated planes that didn’t even make a sound.

One German officer reportedly said:

“We simply couldn’t catch them. They came from nowhere and disappeared into the night.”

These women completed a mind-blowing 23,672 combat missions on those rickety planes.Image
What was their motivation?

🔸Many of them had lost fathers, brothers, or entire families in the first waves of the Nazi invasion.
🔸They had seen villages burned, civilians hanged, and cities turned to ash.
🔸Some came from occupied territories, where they knew women and children were being raped and murdered.
🔸Others had friends who were nurses or medics and had witnessed firsthand what the Nazis did to the wounded.
🔸They weren’t fighting for medals. They were flying through hell every night because the war was personal.

What they were saying:

“Every bomb I dropped was for my father. He never came back from the front. But I made sure the Nazis knew we weren’t done.”

“My pilot strove to fly as many operational sorties as possible every night. She certainly had a good reason to want to square her account with the Nazis.” - Nosal

“A stupid thought occurred to me, even a paradox. Though there is war, with so much horror and blood, yet for me it is the happiest time. In any event, it seems that life in the regiment will be my most radiant memory.” - Rudneva

“They were attacking my city. There was panic in the streets. What else could I do? It was my duty.” - Brok-Beltsova

Yevdokiya Nosal lost her newborn son when a Nazi bombing raid hit the hospital where he was kept. She never spoke of it, but it changed everything.

From that moment on, she flew with relentless fury, over 350 missions, often volunteering for extra runs just to hit back.

“She never spoke of him. But you could feel it. She flew like someone who had nothing left to lose.”

That pain became her fuel. And it made her unstoppable.Image
Read 4 tweets
May 6
The largest evacuation of factories, farms, and entire industries in history saved the USSR - and played a decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany.

At the start of the war, the USSR had no solid plan for mass evacuation. Only on the 3rd day of the Nazi invasion in 1941, the Soviet leadership set up the Council for Evacuation. A special directive soon followed: factories, machinery, fuel, grain, livestock, cultural treasures, and millions of people were to be moved east - fast.

🧵👇

⬇️ In the photo: Evacuation of industrial equipment from a Soviet defense plant to the Urals, 1942.Image
Trains poured toward the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia almost nonstop. At peak times, half of the country’s entire railway fleet was used just for evacuation. Just one factory Zaporizhstal required 8,000 railcars to move its equipment.

In cities like Chelyabinsk, the scale was surreal. One chief engineer stood on his feet for 48 hours straight overseeing the unloading of machines by shop section. He was kept going by thermoses of cocoa laced with stimulants delivered by the local NKVD office.

⬇️ In the photo: Defense plant equipment unloaded near unfinished workshops, Urals, autumn 1941.Image
Factories were rebuilt literally in empty fields, and within weeks, they were already pumping out tanks, bullets, boots, and radios. Women, teenagers, and the elderly worked day and night in these factories to produce weapons for their fathers, husbands, and sons, because almost all the men were off at the front.

These relocated plants went on to produce 90–96% of everything the Red Army used during the war. (Yes, Lend-Lease made up just 4–6% of the total.) No other country in WWII mobilized its people and industry to this degree.

⬇️In the photo: factory in the UralImage
Read 4 tweets
May 6
Everything you’ve been taught about communism is a lie.

If you think communism means gulags, slavery, and everyone starving to death - stick around, the reality might surprise you. 🧵👇

I’m not trying to convert anyone to communism - relax.

All I’m saying is, Western propaganda has been feeding you lies about the USSR and Russia for decades, maybe centuries.

Whether you like communism or not? That’s between you and Karl Marx.Image
A bit of communist history.

Believe it or not, the idea of communism existed long before the USSR, long before Marx, and even long before the word “communism” itself.

Let’s start with Plato.
Yes, that Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher.

In his work The Republic, he described a society where:

🔶 The elite had no private property
🔶 Children were raised collectively
🔶 Everything was shared to prevent selfishness and inequality

The idea is simple: if you want justice, remove the sources of egoism: money, property, competition.

And for those who claim communism is a “Jewish idea”, it’s worth noting: Plato was Greek.

Fun fact:

In the USSR during the 1930s–40s, an official paper was published that harshly criticized Plato, insisting his utopia “had nothing in common with communism.” 🙈

Why? Because people began to notice the similarities.

And since Plato was a Greek part of the “bourgeois” West, the Soviet Union wanted to distance itself from that, even if the ideas were strikingly close.
Then came the utopians.

Before Marx, there were the utopian socialists: Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen (also not Jewish, but Catholic Europeans).

They lived between the 16th and early 19th centuries and dreamed of societies without poverty, built on shared labor and mutual care.

“Everything is shared. Everyone works. Everyone receives.”
Read 9 tweets
May 3
Ethnic Cleansing in Karelia, USSR: Finland’s Dirty Secret of WWII

From 1941 to 1944, the Finnish army occupied Eastern Karelia (USSR), where it established a regime of terror targeting the Soviet population of the region.

On October 24, 1941, the first Finnish concentration camp for Soviet civilians of Slavic origin, including women and children, was established in Petrozavodsk. The goal was ethnic cleansing: the elimination of the Russian population in the Finnish-occupied region of Karelia.

🧵👇Image
By the end of 1941, over 13,000 civilians were imprisoned. By mid-1942, the number rose to nearly 22,000. In total, around 30,000 people passed through 13 camps. Roughly one-third died, from starvation, disease, and forced labor. These figures do not include POW camps, where conditions were equally deadly. Since most men were drafted in the early days of the war, the majority of the labor force in the camps consisted of women and children.

In April 1942, Finnish politician Väinö Voionmaa wrote home:
“Out of 20,000 Russian civilians in Äänislinna, 19,000 are in camps. Their food? Rotten horse meat. Children scavenge garbage for scraps. What would the Red Cross say if they saw this?”

In 1942, the death rate in Finnish camps exceeded that of German ones. Testimonies describe corpses being hauled daily, teenagers forced into labor, and women and children made to work 10+ hour shifts in forests and camps, unpaid until 1943.

📖 rabkrin.org/vojonmaa-vyajn…Image
Camp No. 2, unofficially known as the “death camp,” was notorious for its brutality. It held “disloyal” civilians, and its commandant, Finnish officer Solovaara, became infamous for public beatings and killings. In May 1942, he staged a mass beating of prisoners simply for begging. Those who resisted forced labor, often in brutal logging camps, were beaten to death in front of others “as a lesson.”

According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission, Finnish forces conducted medical experiments on prisoners and branded them with hot iron unlike the Nazis, who tattooed. Finland also engaged in slave trading, selling abducted Soviet civilians for agricultural labor.

An estimated 14,000 civilians died in Karelia between 1941 and 1944, excluding POWs. But many of the dead labeled as “prisoners of war” were actually civilians: most rural Soviets lacked passports, and anyone of conscription age was assumed to be a soldier.

In 2021, the FSB declassified the names of 54 Finns responsible for the genocide of the Soviet population.

📖 cyberleninka.ru/article/n/sove…Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 29
The Holodomor Myth: A Fairytale for the Historically Illiterate

Let’s spell it out simply:
The majority of Jews in the USSR lived in one place …. Ukraine.

Why?

Because under the Russian Empire, Jews were legally allowed to settle mainly in what is now Ukraine and Belarus (the “Pale of Settlement”).
When the Soviets came to power, those restrictions were lifted but guess what?

Most Jews stayed where they were.
They didn’t suddenly scatter across Russia or move to Siberia.

If the Soviet government had wanted to “exterminate” Ukrainians or Christians, it would have also been “exterminating” a massive part of its own Jewish population along with Muslims in Kazakhstan as the famine affected it as well.Image
If this information alone isn’t enough for you to realize you’re being lied to, I have more.

In the early 1930s, there was a massive environmental disaster droughts destroyed crops across the USSR, including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the Volga region, and the Caucasus.

The earth cracked open. Rivers dried up. Entire harvests failed before anyone could even collect grain.

And guess what?

The western part of today’s Ukraine, which at the time was controlled by independent Poland, also experienced a famine.
Yes, Lviv was part of Poland back then and it too suffered from famine at the same time.

People there starved to death too.
Poland didn’t even bother counting how many people died. But you’ll never hear about any of this because it doesn’t fit the fairy tale you’re supposed to believe.

No Stalin, no Bolsheviks and yet, people still died from hunger.

At the same time, the United States had the Dust Bowl, where Americans starved to death, lost their farms, and lived in tents.Image
Image
How Agriculture Worked in Russia

The way agriculture was organized in Russia wasn’t exactly efficient.
Let’s list the famines under Tsarist Russia:
1873, 1891–1892, 1901–1902, 1905–1907, 1911, 1915–1917.
Who are you going to blame for these? The Bolsheviks too?

After the Revolution, famines continued:
1917–1918, 1920–1923, 1924–1925, 1928–1929, and finally the 1931–1933 famine, the one you know today as the so-called “Holodomor.”

Think about it:
Why haven’t you heard about all the others?

There was a clear need to fix the broken agricultural system and that’s what collectivization was.
It meant creating collective farms where peasants worked together, got access to machinery provided by the state, and were paid like industrial workers.

And guess what?
After that, there were no more regular famines.
There was one more famine after World War II, in the 1940s caused by environmental disasters but nothing like the endless cycle of famines every few years under the Tsars.
Read 9 tweets
Apr 29
Exposing @Truthtellerftm Propaganda - The Real Facts

🧵👇

Lie: ❌gulag prisoner

Truth: ✅Soviet prisoners of war standing before barracks in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/all…
Lie: ❌ Russia acknowledged the Holodomor as a genocide or intentional famine. Russia also acknowledges 7 million victims in Ukraine.

Truth ✅: Russia said that “there is no historical evidence that the famine was organized along ethnic lines.

Russia acknowledges 7 million deaths across all the regions affected by the famine and illnesses, which include: the Volga Region, the Central Black Earth Region, the North Caucasus, the Urals, Crimea, part of Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Direct link to the Russian Duma website which he actually cites but lies about what the Russian Duma says. Click page 4 ⏩ duma.consultant.ru/documents/9558…

x.com/truthtellerftm…Image
Lie: ❌Garett Jones confirmed that it was an intentional genocide/man-made famine

Truth: ✅ Gareth Jones reported famine, not genocide, his grandson confirmed his story was hijacked.

Here is a video of Gareth Jones’s grandson talking about this:

youtu.be/1BVJ8gulmh4?si… x.com/truthtellerftm…
Read 11 tweets

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