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A comment on Mikhail Gorbachev has died. Parent comment

Re:Mikhail Gorbachev has died by vkou on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @06:58PM (#32656254)
> Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not.

Given the utter unmitigated disaster of the Russian economy in the 90s, I'd daresay that it certainly had the ability to influence it away from the hard swing towards strongman authoritarianism that followed.

The Washington Consensus was a disaster, and strongly soured the country on working with the West.

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Re:Mikhail Gorbachev has died by makeitdouble on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @07:08PM (#32656352)
The US had a very consistent pattern of going for the Oil during that period, and the results are pretty clear. I'm not sure more US influence in Russia would have gone the way people hope.
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