Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Lilia Shevtsova: Vladimir Putin offers the West a Faustian bargain
The post-Cold War order that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union was doomed to fail because it rested on a belief that post-Soviet Russia was no longer a problem. Even when Western leaders realized that Russia under Vladimir Putin was becoming a problem, they exchanged political acquiescence with the Kremlin for economic benefits. Liberal democracies agreed to play a game of “let’s pretend,” in which they viewed Russia as a “normal country” while the Russian elite became integrated into the West — and corrupted the Western system from within.