>>16851602Problem is Russia has very weak institutions and so has few tools to garner influence. Just whatever stuff the Mafia in Kremlin can muster. Which means they can't really build anything long term and just take advantage of momentary chaos (where they usually end up losing more than they had anyway, but it's fine because it's easier to showcase epic military operations or taking credit for totes 5D manipulations whenever anything bad in the West happens than to explain the loss of old spheres of influence to people). Very few people benefit here. Certainly not Russia as a whole.
