I was talking to a colleague from Ukraine who specializes in the politics of the FSU and visits Ukraine regularly.
“It sounds like Ukraine has moved back to the nineties,” I said.
For us, “the nineties” mean bandit wars, gangs, corruption, and a complete collapse of all governmental structures. “This is like the nineties” has come to mean “horrible, hopeless, terrifying.”
“Oh no,” my colleague said. “This is even worse than the nineties. Then, criminals would come and take your business away but now government has become a criminal gang that comes and takes your business away. It was kind of better when bandits were in charge.”
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