Yeah there are a lot of Putin apologists and paid trolls shovelling and polishing Putin's sh*t in the comments.
Unfortunately they are wrong. While Russia's national debt isn't too bad (~20% of GDP - which is not "virtually no debt"), their GDP growth since 2011 has averaged around 1% per year - shocking, especially for an emerging economy that should be growing fast.
Russia had some great growth years from around 1999 - 2011 (a lot of it fuelled by high oil prices) but they are in serious trouble now. Putin has done a terrible job diversifying the economy and has mostly just succeeding in embezzling as much of people's money for himself and his mates as possible.
