Russia has openly offered itself to the West since the collapse of the USSR, and with just a little more feeling for its interests,
which the West could then quite painlessly incorporate with its power its strategic interests in a broader sense - everything
could have been different.
Yeah, a little more feeling for its interest - just to unfair,aly preserve its impact on the rest of the post-soviet countries. Let them be independent, but let it be pretended, not real. And we will palm off our pro-russian politicians, influence public sentiment, and split the country from within. Of course, everything could have been different. Talk about everything being different with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and many other countries.
Russia is isolated completely and they have failed this war no matter how it ends from now.Economically speaking and with the sanctions put to them they need at least 40 years in order to keep up with Western advanced technologies which they have no access anymore as they cannot import vital technological chips for their devices,this alone for me is devastating but the results of such move will be felt with the passing of a couple of years.It will be exactly then that Russian citizens themselves will not care anymore about their government and wide protests will go on,they will see how far behind they will be.They will be poorer and they will blame Putin them but it will be too late.