Vladimir Putin often invokes the spectre of the 1990s when justifying his rule over Russia, referring both to the economic calamity of the period and its political tumult. While he may obsess over the latter in his increasingly rabid broadcasts, it is the former that poses the greatest threat to his regime.
Russia is set to undergo a near-redux of one of the darkest episodes of that time, its August 1998 default, ie sovereign bankruptcy — an experience that scarred the word in the Russian language, дефолт (pronounced like the English, “default”).
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