Can you really say with a straight face that Putin's Russia today is worse off than the Yeltsin's Russia in the 90s? They were still flying the Mir space station back then.
Have you ever asked why did the Soviet Union fell? And no it's not because of the system. It's because the Russians bought into the promises of democracy and liberalism.
It's not like Russia turned it's back on the West. The West that turned it's back on Russia. And if you're still blaming Russia for the stupidity of starting a war. Then what about Israel and the US? Have they been sanctioned and boycotted to the levels of Russia?
Japan doubled down on the West. And look where they are today. Lost decades. Drowning in debt. Economy shrinking. Geriatric population. Rising fascism and stupidity. Should Russia envy that?
Ukraine is a corrupt and stupid Eastern European country that borders Russia. That was precisely why NATO wants to use it as battering ram on Russia. The Western Europeans have always wanted to colonize and break Russia apart. That mindset have always been there for centuries. But they don't want to get their boys killed or cities nuked. So they got a stupid Ukraine to do the dirty work. What's so hard to understand?
If Russia had left Ukraine alone, they would have to fight a stronger, NATO-protected Ukraine down the line. Ukraine have been provoking skirmishes with Russia in the build up to the 2022 war. Major wars never start on a whim. The Ukrainian state have been sending Nazis around the country to round up and massacre ethnic Russians. War was eventually gonna happen sooner or later. Strategically, its was always better for Russia to take Ukraine down sooner, before it becomes too powerful later.
Yeltsin is one of the worst leaders of Russia. Maybe the worst. Your vantage point should never be the worst example but how much potential you have vs what you have.
As far as I know, Soviet Union collapsed because it tried to liberalize its political system before it fixed its economic system. But this is a whole other topic and out of the scope of this discussion.
Russia did try to become part of the west and it's true that they got turned down but the response to that shouldn't have been lashing out and starting wars like a moron but to build a worl class economy, tech companies etc. so that you don't have to care about getting into these "cool clubs".
I used Japan as an example to demonstrate the dangers of being depndent on one power so you are backing up my point here.
Oh tell me about how poor and corrupt Ukraine was going to magically invade/colonize Russia and break it apart
Sorry, not buying into these conspiracy theories. Estonia is right next to Russia but nothing happened, somehow Ukraine which is a poor country was going to break hell loose.
Starting wars over imaginary bullshit is 20th/19th century thinking and doesn't belong anywhere in the 21st century.
I mean this could all be avoided if they let Russia join NATO. The Europeans and Americans are too dumb and now there's war in Europe. They pushed Russia to China ofc Russia is going to depend more on China. It's not really Putin's fault that the west kept insisting on an anti-Russian NATO.
At some point Russia did try to join NATO. If Russia focused on economic development then Ukraine would have gotten the same response as Russia and left in the cold. Expansion of NATO/EU is just too much work that western Europe is not interested in doing otherwise there may as well be Georgia in NATO. Many people here live in a binary thinking world and don't understand nuances. NATO would have lost its relevance if Eastern Europe became peaceful. Prior to the EU, Western Europe was also a hotbed of conflict. Leaders there are not stuck in 1930s mentality to start useless wars. Same thing would have happened in Russia if Putin wants to live in the 21st century.
