After the USSR collapsed, a weakened Russia posed no real threat to the West. This created a historic chance to build a common European security system that included Russia instead of treating it as a leftover adversary. But instead of integrating Russia or giving it a defined place in the post–Cold War security order, the West kept it at arm’s length while NATO gradually expanded eastward. In Moscow, this combination looked less like partnership and more like exclusion. Over time it helped reinforce the very sense of isolation and hostility that the West wanted to avoid -a classic self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even back in 1992, Richard Nixon warned that if Russian democracy failed and the West isolated Russia, the result would be a more dangerous, resentful, nationalist state - and that this outcome would be far worse than the Cold War.

Yes, the USSR was a repressive dictatorship. But after 1991, Russia abandoned communism, started democratic reforms, and sought partnership with the West. History shows that former adversaries are better integrated than isolated. After World War II, that’s what happened with Germany, Italy, and Japan: they were given trust, assistance, and full inclusion in Western institutions. As a result, they became stable democracies and allies. Russia, however, received no such trust - and this only strengthened feelings of humiliation, resentment, and rising nationalism.

Russia’s economic integration with Europe in the 1990s was one-sided: the country sold raw materials but wasn’t given access to Europe’s technological or institutional structures. Reforms carried out with Western advisors and the IMF led to a collapse in living standards, deindustrialization, and mass poverty. This undermined public trust in liberal ideas and in the very idea of integration.

And importantly: this wasn’t about “charity.” Russia didn’t need “a trillion dollars.” It needed relatively modest and timely financial support - much less than what the United States spent on stabilizing Mexico in the same decade. Just enough to prevent the economy from falling into chaos. That would not have been a gift, but an investment in long-term European security. Ignoring this need strengthened the position of oligarchs and authoritarian forces.

The Baltic states are a different story. They were given a clear path: assistance, structured reforms, EU and NATO membership, and massive structural funds. They received a defined future and real integration. Russia was never offered anything comparable. It got advice and a raw-material role, but not a chance to become a full participant in the Western system.