I don't buy it. Every single European country was ruled by non-democratic imperials assholes for a thousand years, until we each lost our last war and became normal modern countries.

There is no reason for me to think that Russia will not be the same. Ukraine could be Russia's last imperialist war. That would certainly be a good thing for the Russian people.

Russia shakes off "revolutions" like the collapse of communism and just rolls along being itself.

Normally during revolutions, some other worse assholes fill the power void and sieze power. It happened with the 1917 revolution who gave us none other than Stalin. Or the French revolution, which triggered a series of wars and then we had Napoleon filled that power void and started some more wars.

The 1989 revolutions are somewhat different, because they were triggered by the colapse of the USSR, so to some extent a peaceful transfer of power happened. Except for Romania, Moldova and Ukraine who is now paying the price for refusing to become the other Belarus. The collapse of the USSR ultimately led to Putin the wars in Chechhnya, Georgia and Ukraine.