The breakup of the USSR was followed by rapid growth in living standards for four of the European countries now most threatened by Russian aggression: the Baltic States, and Poland by the end of 2023. Moving from collectivism to a market system was particularly successful for these countries, with real GDP per capita rising by 241% in Lithuania, 225% in Latvia, 156% in Estonia, and 141% in Poland by end of 2023. The World Economics Governance Index rates these four countries at 82.2, 80.4, 81.1, and 70.0 respectively compared to Russia’s lowly rating of 22.6.

The living standards of the average Russian benefited from the initial move from Socialism rising by 100% from 1998 to 2008, the year of the invasion of Georgia. Since then, the average annual rise in real GDP per capita in Russia has averaged around 1.8% per year and has slowed further since 2014, the year of the annexation of Crimea. Productive economic growth in Russia of benefit to citizens has been impacted by the imposition of sanctions, by the high level of GDP allocated to defence spending. And by the lack of freedom and corruption shown by the Governance indexes.

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