It has improved significantly in the last 20 years. But the 90’s were as bad if not worse than in Russia in most places. And Russia was on an upwards trend until the 2010’s as well, e.g. if we look at average income levels the Baltic states only overtook Russia around ~2014.
And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single country besides them did much worse than Russia (unless like it they had a large amount of natural resources)
Well close to 300 million people lived in the USSR. Only 8 million of them lived in the Baltic states.
I still personally think the (mostly) peaceful dissolution of the USSR was probably one the best things that happened in the past 100 years. But transition to capitalism was extremely mismanaged, even in the “successful” countries.
And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single country besides them did much worse than Russia (unless like it they had a large amount of natural resources)