https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgG_fLNBv6A
Above is a 3-minute portion of an interview with Nixon in 1992 (80 years of age). He talks about how Russia is now at a crossroads. Communism is finished - but now it remains to be seen if Russia will adopt freedom, or continue with despotism in another form, and continue Russian imperialism, which has been a characteristic of Russian policy for hundreds of years.
I always thought that the USA could have done more to assist Russia in coming out of Communism. (Trade, investments, training, etc.) Of course Russia probably didn’t want that influence from the west. And Russia’s economy was taken over by their mobs pretty quickly which made investments risky.
One of the strangest things the Putin supporters seem to think is that the generations of the power structure, leaders and institutions, criminal underworld connected to the mass corruption of Russia, a built in element of its national character, and the very nature of the Russians and Russia simply evaporated into the atmosphere and floated away in 1991 and all was born new and fresh, and completely different, a bright eyed people full of Christian outreach who just wanted to help the world become a better and freer place and share the optimism and positivity that they are so famous for.