Often see knee jerk reactions here in regards to Russia and when I challenge them....oh boy, I don't get flamed, I get burned at the stake.
Russia is a country with a lot of history and a lot of pride. Russian troops marched in Paris when it helped take down Emperor Napoleon. And Russia helped considerably in breaking the back of the Nazi forces. Before the bomb, FDR wanted and was promised by Stalin to take down Japan. We were going to come up the south while they came down north during the proposed invasion.
And the country and people also perceive themselves as getting screwed over by the west on multiple occasions. Most people don't know after World War I, Russia was to gain control over Istanbul...which it would then rename Constantinople and become the capital of Orthodoxy once again. Instead, because of the revolution, not only did they not get that, but lost all the land that the Germans occupied, which were then turned into their own nations, such as Ukraine....a place that never really was a nation.
After the Soviet collapse, they got Yeltsin and when the Duma opposed him, he illegally liquidated it....and we backed his autocratic power grab...so you could say, we helped create this mess. Who knew a former mid level, lackluster and nondescript former KGB agent would become what he is today? Oh and and insult to injury, again, they lost territory, again. Many of the republics in the USSR included Russian territory to prevent them from doing what they eventually did, secede. For example, Ukraine is much larger as a nation than it was after WWI, because it actually includes former Russian territory.
Russia is complicated. Due to its long history and complicated role with Europe and the USA is a country that's barely 250 years old and dictating to them one dimensional solutions. To them, that's an insult.
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