There is only one nation responsible for the shortcomings of Russia since the fall of the USSR, and that nation is Russia.
They could have easily integrated into the west. Doors were open for them, they joined the G-8, they could have integrated economically. But they chose this path of half-communism based on gangsters instead of ideologues.
Some of the Russian people saw this but were unable to stop the forces that eventually consolidated around strongman Putin and whatever slim hope there was for the west to welcome Russia into the fold has now evaporated completely.
Ukraine wanted to be the new Russia and that must have made Putin very angry, given that Russians have always looked down on Ukrainians (calling them little Russians). Ukraine was moving forward while Russia stagnated. Putin tried to disguise this with big shows like Olympic games and World Cup of football, but it didn’t really work.
And now he has lashed out to try to destroy the forward path of Ukraine and force them to plod along with Russia and the other lame duck, Belarus. Even Kazakhstan has probably done better since the fall of the USSR.
My fear is that Putin will get so angry and humiliated in this fiasco that he will lash out at other targets and perhaps seek to plunge the whole world into crisis. He needs to be taken out by the Russian military as soon as possible, otherwise it will be a huge global crisis and possibly a terrible war. We would technically win that war, but at a greater cost than the Second World War. Nobody needs that, least of all the Russian people (who must be generally scared to death now because I’m sure they realize that as far as superpowers invading Russia, they may not be third time lucky, they beat back Napoleon and Hitler, barely, but NATO? I don’t think so.)
Isn’t it well known in Western countries that to do business in post-Soviet Russia, you are going to have to pay bribes and deal with all kinds of corruption? I seem to recall George W. Bush chiding Putin on this very subject; something to the effect that corruption needed to be cleaned up to attract Western investment and business in Russia.
Yet people think that Mr. Clean Putin and his cronies are going to root out corruption, trafficking, etc. in Ukraine. Utterly laughable.