Russia tried to pull that shit in the United States, and "do nothing" was largely our response.

you had a pretty long investigation that concluded that Russian involvement was a bit of money here and there

I assume having Russian equivalent of McCain, Nuland and CIA running around would provoke a more vigorous response

And 20 years before that, the US tried to pull that shit in Russia, with Yeltsin's second term in 1996. Not covertly, mind you, but while advertising it on every corner and in every media like NYT as a "fight against communism". (which it partly was!)

By that point, Yeltsin was universally hated for turning Russia back towards autocracy, for botched privatization, and the Chechen war. His rating rose from 6% to 53% in mere half a year before the elections, with the help of a massive campaign he organized using the stolen money. But the fact that the Clinton administration aligned with him and tried to "help" him with the massive NGO and media work (that's only the overt part) has been remembered by most who supported the democratic change.

Instead of Yeltsin, it could have been Nemtsov, who was truly popular during that time, but refused to run exactly because Clinton+Gore supported Yeltsin... Nemtsov, remember that name? US administration suddenly did, in 2015. Too bad they didn't before.

"Do nothing" was also Russians' response at the time (except for the brief investigation that was quickly stopped by the autocrat), but that was one of the turning points in the people's minds.

History truly rhymes.

Democracy has a well-known blatantly US backing.

Not just being punchy: if you accuse pro-democracy movements of being US-backed coups, then that's a low bar for association.

The US even tries to foist democracy where it's a terribly ineffective idea, from a US interests standpoint, see efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

oh yes, I did see those.

And your thoughts on how democracy, despite being the least effective approach to extracting resources and suppressing dissent, was pushed on them by the US?

Afghanistan wouldn't be under Taliban control today, if the US had installed a dictator and given them a free hand.

I think it worked out pretty well to enrich a handful of corporations and individuals at the expense of American taxpayers and brown lives.

That could have been done easily and better with an autocracy.

Pro-democracy movements don't need prison camps, death squads, and institutional corruption. All of which - unfortunately - seem to happen fairly regularly when the US brings democracy to a small country which happens to be resource rich.

Can we stop pretending these are anything other than resource wars, combined with an excuse to throw money at the defence industry?

Russia looked at US actions in Iraq etc and apparently had an irrational attack of atrocity envy, blended with greed over the mineral-rich areas of Eastern Ukraine.

Neither empire is wholesome and good, but the Russians are completely crap at militarised colonialism while the US is fairly competent at it.

However... Russia is much better at subversion and bribery. Given Jan 6 and the wholesale co-option of the far right of the Republican party - which is most of it - only someone very naive would believe that the US and NATO aren't in danger of being subverted from within.

My suspicion is that Ukraine is part distraction, part attrition campaign against NATO, and part proxy war with China, with Russia as willing (because naively stupid) intermediary.

The real front is the internal politics of each NATO state.

Hungary is already lost, the UK is severely weakened by Brexit, Germany was compromised but is recovering, and the US has some very serious problems with infiltration and subversion. Which aren't being taken seriously enough.