Source: China – South China Morning PostI have covered Russia, Belarus and post-Soviet issues since 1997 and also worked as a translator of Russian to English. Unlike many Western journalists, for a long time I was impressed overall with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s performance.Many of his accomplishments, especially in his first 10 years, would be rather incredible for a leader of any nation: from the ashes of the USSR, Russia became not only a free-market economy but a proud nation, and this was strongly based on Putin’s…Read More