[will4274]

> we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power

That's not accurate at all - the arrow of cause and effect cannot point backwards in time. The current powers in Russia are largely a result of privitization in Russia in the 90s. This privitization was deeply unfair to the average Russian, and was largely driven by the West's desire to turn Russia away from Communism. The result was the oligarchs and Putin (in charge since 2000). There's still blame for the West here, but NATO expansion came after Russia turned against the West; it wasn't the cause of it.