Could not disagree more strongly. What Russia needed was George Washington or Alexander Hamilton 2.0...what Russia got was Hitler 2.0. I assume you are familiar with the way that putin came to power, direct echoes of Reichstag fires and Crystal Nacht, and of course from there straight to Guernica in Grozny, Aleppo and now pick your city in Ukraine. "Slavic interests" are directly analogous to Lebensraum, and we certainly know how those excuses and justifications worked out.

The U.S. ethos of self determination and liberal democracy values suffers from Kirkpatrick/Wolfowitz/Perle/Cheney/Rumsfeld Neocon "realpolitik" and endless Cold War stupidity, but that's no reason to walk away from them.

putin has always shown his true hand; a world hugely damaged by the Cold War just didn't want to accept the truth of his actions, wanted to engage in the hopes that putin actually was logical and reasonably interested in policies that would benefit both Russians and the rest of the world. The truth couldn't be more stark, a megalomaniac psychopath with control of nukes, something that was never actually true during the Cold War. I agree, very difficult to stuff that Dracula back in the crypt (where's an oak stake when you need one) and definitely wrong and incredibly dangerous to ever do business as normal with Russia until he no longer rules.