Applebaum talks as if the West has been absent from Russia's bordering countries until recently. The US and some of western Europe was involved at various leve

Applebaum talks as if the West has been absent from Russia's bordering countries until recently. The US and some of western Europe was involved at various levels with Chechnya, Georgia and the Ukraine. You can watch video of John McCain with pre-9/11 Chechnyan jihadists, or Victoria Nuland handing out cookies in Maidan Square in Kiev to the people forcibly overthrowing the Ukraine's elected government. Insofar as democracy and autocracy, you can also watch videos of Clinton and other Americans celebrating Yeltsin's shelling of the Duma, as Russia's elected representatives were heeding the wishes of Russian citizens to not be in a mad rush to sell enterprises to western companies and dismantle the social welfare system. The US put all its energy behind forming a strong Russian presidency including armed attacks on Russia's parliament by the presidency, and the presidency got molded the way the US advocated. Now the Applebaum turns around and whines the Russia presidency and Russia is autocratic.