“used to run a half dozen African nations”
The key word here is “used”. The world changes grows and evolves and so do countries. Most have given up colonialism and wars of conquests that used to dominate the past. Russia is an exception and so are the Islamist countries. If you are looking around you will see that the world is a much different place than it was last century or even 60 years ago.
And Russia is filling that void as in used to a month ago.
You are freaking clueless about what goes on in the world or you are simply a democrat.