Scott Ritter: Putin’s ‘quarter century of dedicated work’ added to reinvigorated Russia

Reinvigorating the Russian nation is one of the key achievements of President Vladimir Putin, who is headed towards a landslide re-election victory.

His victory, according to the analyst, “didn't happen in a vacuum” and was “the byproduct of a quarter century of dedicated work on behalf of Vladimir Putin for Russia and the Russian people,” Ritter stresses. 

He recalls the country’s times of trouble in the 1990s, when “the very existence of the Russian state and the Russian nation was being called into question.”

“It was a decade where criminal oligarchs took over and hijacked the Russian economy on behalf of ostensibly Western allies, who weren't true allies, rather people […] who were seeking to dominate Russia politically and economically. This was the decade that Vladimir Putin grew into political prominence,” Ritter said. 

“Putin was a product of the 1990s. He saw the reality of the 1990s and he understood that his country could never allow itself to go back to those times. He understood that if Russia didn't break free of the path that it was headed on during the decade of the 90s, there would be no Russia,” the former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer emphasizes.