I think you meant to say Russia had the choice of being an independent but mostly irrelevant former power, a broker between east and west, a junior power in the West, or a junior partner in the East. It picked option 4.
It had the choice between not being invaded by EU NATO, not being invaded by Ukraine, not being invaded by the USA, not being invaded by China... And despite the first three options being total no brainers it rejected every option except the last one.
Finally it chose to annexe other regions of countries then bomb those regions then complain that Russia’s territorial ‘tegridy is being undermined by old Russia now having to bomb new bits of Russia to protect old and new Russia from not being bombed by people who weren’t going to bomb it in the first place. And yet, in a heartbeat, they dropped their pants for a big Xi gang bang.
Russia’s war logic, in short, is so stupid that Matt and Trey would’ve struggled to satirise it. It’s already far more retarded than anything they could’ve ever come up with.
“I think you meant to say Russia had the choice of being an independent but mostly irrelevant former power”
Doesn’t sound that way, with the West talking about ‘weakening’ and ‘de-colonializing’ Russia, and admitting to flat-out LYING to them once the Cold War ended.
Seems to me that Russia was going to be left alone about as much as a straight kid who attends church does these days in American public schools.
Problem for the West is that Russia isn’t interested in more LIES from them “oh, we were nevvverrr going to do anything to Russia”, as they have seen what the West has done in Serbia, Kosovo, North Africa, and the Middle East. They knew full-well that they were not about to be left alone.