Bush said that in 2001. Putin had just been installed and hadn’t secured his power yet. Oil was cheap, had been for over a decade, so Russia didn’t have money yet. Putin was surely behaving differently at that time.
Thanks. Putin is playing us for real fools now that he’s in a good enough position to make his move. They must be laughing their butts off at how incredibly easy they can manipulate minds over here. Just toss the fools a bone and they run off in some corner to chomp on it.