>> In the 1990s, when Russia was in a very bad economic situation, there was a lot of support for Russia from the EU >From my experience you greatly overplay i

>> In the 1990s, when Russia was in a very bad economic situation, there was a lot of support for Russia from the EU >From my experience you greatly overplay it. There was "some support" maybe, but definitely not "lots" of it. Some numbers from my country of origin: In 1990, West-Germany alone payed 12 billion D-Mark (~6 billion Euro) and an additional loan of 3 billion (~1.5 billion Euro) for the re-unification to the SU (officially for the withdrawal costs of the Red Army). In addition Germany supported Russia to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Alone in 2020, German trade with Russia was covered by new export credit guarantees from the German state of 2.47 billion Euro; in this it was #1 (#2 Turkey: 1.93 bln, #3 USA: 1.25 bln, #4 China: 1.21 bln). -- How much else would be necessary to call it "a lot"? > But there was no integration. I would recommend reading the "Common Strategy of the European Union of 4 June 1999 on Russia": https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:31999E0414 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... This text documents in detail the common understanding of the member states of the EU at that time regarding Russia. However, it was the Russian government that rejected the idea of an integration into a common European economic and legal area on the basis that Russia is special in so far as it is not only European, but European-Asian and wants to keep its independence. The politcal vison of Putin was not to join the EU at some point in the future, but to establish Russia as the hegemon of its own federation of states, the Commonwealth of Independent States. To sum it up: The outstretched hand of the EU was rejected by Putin right at the beginning of his presidency for fundamental reasons. There was therefore no realistic chance of a closer relationship between the EU and Russia in the last two decades.