Forty percent of them will probably never live to be 60. A vast majority of Russians see their new post-communist illusions and hopes for a decent life going down the drain. Russia failed to create a new democratic state system based on law and reasonable division of responsibility between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. True, elections are held regularly and in a democratic manner. But there is still no large democratic political party in the country that could oppose the massive Russian Communist Party.
Russian courts are without resources and have little impact on civic and business life.
President Boris Yeltsin's constitution of 1993 gives him almost unchecked powers. Russia failed to find its post-Soviet identity and place in the world. By 1995 the conciliatory and integrationist pro-Western foreign policy of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Andrei Kozyrev, Russian foreign minister from 1990 to 1995, was under severe criticism. NATO's expansion, U.S. military action against Yugoslavia and Iraq, and Western activities against Russian commercial and political interests everywhere, particularly in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, have contributed to growing Russian anti-Americanism. The United States acted recently, he said, as if Russia no longer existed.