[dennisw]

Russians learned it hard way under Yeltsin. They did what they were asked to do 

 By those hotshot Harvard advisors and crooks such as J Sacks?

and they paid with misery and millions of premature deaths.

[A. Pole]

By those hotshot Harvard advisors and crooks such as J Sacks?

Yes, and by pressure from Western governments. They were told that if they want trade and economical cooperation they have to follow "free" market privatization in process of which few speculators and organized crime too control of the large part of national assets.

When the Russian Parliament resisted this scheme, western leaders and media demanded and praised massacre of Parliament in 1993 as the triumph of free market democracy.

Strangely enough it was the beginning of Chechen rebellion - the leader of Russian Duma was Chechen and before coming of Wahabi Islamists, Chechens has seen themselves as defender of democracy.