[digi_owl]

Russia was a the big buddy and teddy-bear of US and EU during the Yeltsin years, while the oligarch were grabbing everything and anything they could of the soviet industrial capacity for their own enrichment.

Then comes Putin, clamps down on said oligarchs, and all of a sudden we are right back at cold war rhetoric.

As for repressing dissidents, lets have a look at the number of civil wars and whatsnot that was instigated by USA around the "free" world during the same timeframe.