Vlad

Putin blames the West and external factors - chiefly the drop in oil prices - for the collapse of Russia’s currency and stock market.

The hard-headed megalomaniac finally acknowledged that Western sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea and role in the unrest in Ukraine were biting, but he said the economic troubles his country is facing will last no more than two years.

Yeah, right, asshole!

Then this oligarch went on to say Russia will retool its economy away from oil, upon which it has become overly dependent.

Really, asshole?

Your country depends on oil to keep it afloat. You have nothing else to export that the West wants.

I wonder if his deceased fellow comrades - Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, etc - would approve of him and his handling of this crisis. I know how Gorbachev and Yeltsin would feel.

El Duce Putin believes he is in the 'right' for the downing of MH-17? The good people of the Netherlands and Australia still await an apology from Russia. If Putin wants standing on the global stage - it starts there.
Good luck transforming an isolated, non-diversified economy in 2 years ... that is nothing short of delusional. A diversified economy requires an open society for global collaboration, which is not allowed under the paranoid KGB model (where isolation is required to maintain control).

Putin, you've lost half your population to the West since the fall of the wall simply because they see a much better way of life than the suspended animation of central soviet mob control. They have left under their own free will. Ukraine is just the latest to see the light which is just next door to Poland.

Advances in oil tech are just beginning ... fracking is just the beginning. As much as I am against fracking, it has taken you and OPEC by surprise.

The fact that your approval rating is 70% means nothing.

If you were a Russian citizen and a stranger approached you either on the street, on the telephone, or through email and asked if you approved of the former KGB Bureau Chief who is currently President of Russia and the job he is doing, how would you answer? I'm surprised your approval is only 70%!

There are some pretty brave Russians still living in Russia (the 30% who had the guts to voice their disapproval).

If the head of SONY pictures can be intimidated into shelving a multi-million dollar investment over an anonymous internet threat in an open society such as ours, what do you think the comparative intimidation level is for the average Russian over something as potentially life altering as this question?

Demagogue tyrants always blame someone else for their problems.

The joke here in the US is that a lot of conservative commentators praised Putin a few months back. They were all saying what a great strong leader he was and how much they admired his nationalism and commitment to strong conservative values, and how they wished America had a leader like that.

(I'm sorry ... I had to run to the bathroom to puke!)

What happened with all of that praise Teapublicans? I guess you must have overlooked the fact that he is an incompetent, shallow demagogue, a fact which was obvious to the rest of the world.

The rubles are worthless ... what a shame. (pun intended)

The tougher Putin talks, the weaker he is. How do you move away from a firmly-entrenched extractive economy in just two years? How do you develop world-class competitive consumer-oriented industries in just two years? Don't think so.

Quite possibly there's a new Russian president in two years. Putin, just get out of the Ukraine and pay reparations for MH17. You'd see things get back to normal pretty quickly. No, your ego won't let you? Hey, then don't complain when your economy continues to sink.

Get out of the way asshole so ordinary Russians can go back to living their lives.