You seem to be intellectually shallow to me.
You can very well consider that Russia lost the Cold War but the Russians view it as that they understood that communism and Soviet empire were bad they gave freedom to Europe by moving out.
If you insisted on them feeling defeated, they would change their mind and return to Europe around early to mid-1990s.
Regarding de-despotization, Russia had a thriving democracy between 1988-1993 until Clinton helped his client Yeltsin usurp power and to steal election in 1996.
Putin is a great improvement in terms of rule of law, freedoms, and he was generally the answer to both Yeltsin’s tyranny and failed economy.
Regarding de-communization don’t make me laugh. Only idiots waye wars on statues.
As far as statues are concerned, where do you draw the line? Is it really acceptable to have statues of mass murderers (the Bolshevik leaders were mass murderers) in public places? Had the Nazis erected statues of Hitler in Germany, should they have remained in place?
But even if we accepted the idea of “not fighting the statues” in its purest form, why do the Russian occupiers erect statues of Lenin in Ukraine? They surely seem to love their Bolshevik murderers. They fly Soviet flags too.
De-Communization isn’t only about statues. In my country we have a law that prohibits former Communist functionaries and agents from holding certain positions in public administration. No such restrictions were enacted in Russia.
You are trying to claim that Russia has been de-Communized, but where is the evidence?
In Russia Communism is only part of the problem. Russia has no tradition of free political institutions (Novgorod didn’t represent the Russian mainstream and it was destroyed anyway). A few months in 1917 could not create a tradition.
Saying that Putin has improved the rule of law and freedoms is a sick joke. Putin’s political opponents are either dead, or in prison, or in exile.