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Dirk Tieleman is one of the most renowned Belgian journalists in the country. He has travelled the world for decades to report, often from places where no other journalist has been. A boldness that has often brought him to Russia. He went there for the first time in 1988 as a journalist for Belgian public radio. He therefore has a more nuanced view of the conflict and of current Russian society.
For the publication of his book “The clashes in Russia”, the retired journalist spoke to the Belgian daily Het Nieuwsblad .
Where and when did things go wrong for Russia, experienced Russian expert Dirk Tieleman was asked? “Gorbachev quickly had to give way to Yeltsin. Yeltsin wanted to make big changes in cooperation with the West, but everything happened too abruptly. Prices skyrocketed, leading to massive inflation. In Poland, the same phenomenon was observed… except that the West had ensured that preconditions were met. For example, no banknotes were reprinted. In Russia, this was not the case and inflation skyrocketed. An inflation rate of 2,000 percent, you can hardly imagine. A 1-ruble loaf cost 2,000 rubles a month later.”
This was followed by a great deal of insecurity. According to the Belgian journalist, the West actually abandoned Russia. And we can still see the consequences of this abandonment in Russian society today. “Russia then indulged in wild capitalism when it was not ready for it. The West abandoned Russia, a fact that is often forgotten. There was a proliferation, with on one side the super-rich, the oligarchs with their luxury yachts, and on the other, people forced to sell their goods to have something to eat in the evening.”
