To reiterate nooron's point, the West wasn't exactly helpful during the oil shock that ended the USSR and the transition to democracy, but to blame the US for t

To reiterate nooron's point, the West wasn't exactly helpful during the oil shock that ended the USSR and the transition to democracy, but to blame the US for the oligarchs / theft of public resources is going way too far. BTW, if anyone is interested in the fall of the USSR, Yegor Gaidar, an economist, acting Russian PM from June '92 to Dec '92, and architect of the shock therapy reforms immediately post dissolution of the USSR wrote a book about it. I highly recommend it if you're interested in economic history. This appears to be a brief summary of the argument: https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/03/13/Soviet-Union-Oil/ https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/03/13/Soviet-Union-Oil/ book: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia/dp/0815731140 https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia... Yegor Gaidar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar