I am not a historian, so this post is just describing my own impression. I may be wrong, but this is at least how I perceived the historical events.
The past 10-20 years have been a tragedy for the relationship between Russia and Europe, and a failure from Putin to take advantage of the goodwill that existed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Many European countries actually wanted a close relationship with Russia, as they (naively) thought that it was moving in a democratic direction. Lots of companies started offices in Russia and countries like Germany trusted Russia enough to supply them with gas. They will probably not do that again unless they have alternative suppliers.
There were of course some negative rhetorics from old school politicians, and Europe were still close allies with US. But the general hope was that Russia was moving closer to Europe and that in time they could perhaps even join the EU to create a new political and economical power.
Unfortunately Putin decided to go in the opposite direction and trying to rebuild the old empire. Oligarks made it difficult to do business and the political rhetorics made "the west" into an enemy.
The only way I see Russia coming out of this stronger, is if the pressure from the people is high enough to let a real democratic election vote in a new leadership that can reduce corruption. This could start repairing foreign relations which would improve the economic situation. Maybe we could get back to the optimism we had 15-20 years ago.
This is probably not likely to happen in the short term.
The only "upside" of this war is that due to the dependency on gas from Russia, Europe will accelerate the process of switching to greener energy. Windmills, solar power and maybe even nuclear power plants. This may be remembered in history as the turning point in the reduction of global warning, that came with a high human cost.
The past 10-20 years have been a tragedy for the relationship between Russia and Europe, and a failure from Putin to take advantage of the goodwill that existed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Many European countries actually wanted a close relationship with Russia, as they (naively) thought that it was moving in a democratic direction. Lots of companies started offices in Russia and countries like Germany trusted Russia enough to supply them with gas. They will probably not do that again unless they have alternative suppliers.
There were of course some negative rhetorics from old school politicians, and Europe were still close allies with US. But the general hope was that Russia was moving closer to Europe and that in time they could perhaps even join the EU to create a new political and economical power.
Unfortunately Putin decided to go in the opposite direction and trying to rebuild the old empire. Oligarks made it difficult to do business and the political rhetorics made "the west" into an enemy.
The only way I see Russia coming out of this stronger, is if the pressure from the people is high enough to let a real democratic election vote in a new leadership that can reduce corruption. This could start repairing foreign relations which would improve the economic situation. Maybe we could get back to the optimism we had 15-20 years ago.
This is probably not likely to happen in the short term.
The only "upside" of this war is that due to the dependency on gas from Russia, Europe will accelerate the process of switching to greener energy. Windmills, solar power and maybe even nuclear power plants. This may be remembered in history as the turning point in the reduction of global warning, that came with a high human cost.