And they were successful. Half the country hates the other half and visa versa.
Correct.
Can you really blame them? We’ve messed with them every chance we’ve had. Stuck ‘em with Yeltsin after the fall of the USSR, for example.
The problem was never that the Russians were communist.
the problem was that the communists were Russian. This isn’t a nation of goat humping camel jockeys with a 7th century mentality; chess is a spectator sport there.
Same thing I say about some American liberals (AOC)- as Sun Tzu said -*NEVER* underestimate your opponent. Putin is like von Manstein, as sharp an enemy as we’ve ever encountered.