Russia doesn't have free or fair elections anyway- how could the US possibly corrupt it any more than Putin cronies personally controlling almost all domestic Russian media?
The US had a major role in creating the environment that lead to Putin gaining power, with a much heavier hand than anything Russia is accused of at this point. Matt Taibbi had a good article on this a little while ago:
USSR controlled all of the available media, but that didn't help, and 200..300k (unofficial: 1m) of working class went to Moscow streets in 1990. Meetings of modern russian opposition counts up to few thousands, mostly consisting of bored bohemians. Also, the opposition seems to lose the generic idea, chasing the wrong issues.
- When do we get vodka?
- The Center holds it. It is necessary to take away the vodka and the Kremlin.
(Boris Eltzin meeting with real people)
I'm not claiming that what we have now is the best vector of evolution, but the opposite forces are simply weak and up in the clouds by their nature.
If you have any illusions about independence of US mass media after this election cycle, there's some swampland in Florida that I'd like to sell to you.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-what-d...