Jakub, Fiona Hill makes the case in her book "There is Nothing for You Here" that the West could have offered more after the fall of the Soviet Union. That the economic trauma experience by ordinary Russians set the scene for a "strongman" in a similar way that the Great Recession in America did for Trump.

It's a much easier transition from democrat to autocrat than the other. Erdogan, Orban, Duterte, and Mugabe are a few.

Many thanks. Good article.