One of the great mysteries in US/UK analysis of Russia is the apparently almost universally accepted belief that the implosion of Putin’s system would somehow gift Moscow ‘back’ to the West, resetting the clock to the 1990s.
The general consensus seems to be that Russians are secretly bursting with desire for ‘freedom,’ counting down the days until they can re-embrace Uncle Sam. Never mind the fact that even Boris Yeltsin’s pro-American administration became increasingly disillusioned with Washington during his second term in the Kremlin. And, most famously, Yevgeny Primakov, then prime minister, turned his plane around in mid-air en route to the US upon learning of NATO’s decision to illegally bomb Serbia.
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