Check the dates for when the ex-Soviet nations joined the UN, NATO and EU
There is a visible pattern of when the nations under Soviet power joined the West--the UN in 1991 and after to establish their national sovereignty, NATO after Putin started coming to power to further distance themselves and the EU when they could. Putin has refused to recognize this very clear expression of repudiation of the continued oppression in Russia--evidenced in Putin's treatment of Alexei Navalny and others.
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daisy swadesh commented
Natan Sharansky, in the first chapters of his book, Fear No Evil, gives a good description of the situation in the Soviet Union in the 1980s
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daisy swadesh commented
Knowing about the history of the Soviet Union and how anyone who questioned the government in any way was labelled "an enemy of the people" , put in prison, interrogated endlessly, put on public trial and sent to the Gulags of internal exile in Siberia--helps understand why the ex-Soviet nations quietly but emphatically left as soon as they could. But internally Russia has not changed. because of Putin.