Just one guy's opinion here. I have alluded to this once before, Peskov mentioned it yesterday, Lavro stated it in a speech that was actually painful for me to read--I believe, only to a level of 50%+1 that what Vladimir Putin, Lavrov, and maybe Dmitri Medvedev, feel so acutely right now is loss of personal standing. The entire world has condemned them, do you realize that? The votes in the U.N. have been something like 141-3 with 38 abstentions. The Western alliance that Putin in his insouciance was sure would crack is an Iron Curtain, this time not descending over all of Europe but a European Iron Curtain descending over all of Russia. 

It used to be, it's time for anecdotes now, that Russia and Putin were courted. John Kerry practically locked poor Sergei up in a room with him (but for fucking bi-hourly walks together) to work out the Iran sanctions deal. We treated Lavrov as a co-equal. What did Peskov say yesterday? "We said, guys, we want to be treated as equals. No response." Hillary Clinton before Kerry called Lavrov up on Libya. She wanted Lavrov to have Russia abstain at the U.N. Security Council rather than veto. "C'mon Sergei, you can do this. The Arab League is with us." Okay grumbled Lavrov--and you know he grumbled.

It was flattering. Who doesn't like to have their opinion solicited, their support solicited, by the most prestigious nation on the planet? Who amongst us doesn't like to be courted?

There was a time, hell, just two years ago, when the President of the United States of America looked up to the president of Russia! There's a first for everything.

There was a time when the president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, shared burgers at a D.C. hamburger joint with "Barack." (Medvedev's dancing partner now is on a restricted diet of Chinese and North Korean cuisine.)

"Once," Putin himself wrote in a WaPo op-ed, "we were allies." Now he, his regime, and his country are pariahs.

Up until January of this year Putin was viewed around the world as the Grand Master of realpolitik international chess. Joe Biden was viewed as his fool and his foil. (Putin "badly miscalculated." HOOO doggie!)

There was a time, at the time of creation,...painful moment, when a senior Russian official told his American counterpart "We want to be like you!" They wanted to be part of the cool crowd.

Putin asked Bill Clinton what he thought of NATO membership for Russia.

We got them membership in the world's most exclusive club, the G-7. For awhile it was the G-8 or G-7+1, I forget, but Russia was in. 

Then, I forget if it was Georgia, no I think that's too far back, it must have been Crimea, there is this painful photograph of Putin attending his last G-20 summit (they got kicked out of the G-8) and walking past a seated row of his fellow club members, the British P.M., Cameron I think, the Australian P.M., the Japanese guy, Obama, "all the best people" and trying to make familiar eye contact with them and suffering the inverted gazes of each and every one of them.

The last 20 years have been personally humiliating for Putin.

Last anecdote: Lavrov gave a speech, not too many years ago, I don't remember specifically the reason for this one snit--Obama could not abide Putin, it was like fingernails on a blackboard for Obama to even talk to the guy--it could have been Obama's remark that Russia was merely a "regional power",or Obama's--accurate!-captioning of the uncomfortable photo of the two of them seated together, Putin sitting there "like a spoiled child" (drove Putin up the WALL), or Obama's remark that Russia "makes nothing that we want to buy." There were so many occasions that could have given rise to Lavrov's poignant speech (I read the whole thing) in which he said: "We want to be respected for our intelligence." *wince*

Lavrov was right to thing that we don't respect the intelligence of Russians. Peskov was right that we never considered Russia the equal of ourselves. It is all true.

So, I'm connecting dots sure, I'm no xpert...Just on a human (or anthropoidal) level, each of us has encountered rejection, what if everyone you know all at once turned their backs on you? Wouldn't even look you in the eye? I detect shame, mortification in the Kremlin. Putin's spokesman's reaction to Biden's remark in Warsaw was, to me not measured but dispirited. They are in great pain, and it's personal, And. It. Is. All. Their. Fault. Enjoy your eternity in Apartheid Town Vladimir, Sergei, Dmitry, the rest of you with bones in your brains. You deserve the eternal opprobrium of the world. You will live in infamy forever, the very name "Russia" cojoined for eternity with "Trump," "human waste," synonymous with "anthropoid," stand-in for "war crimes", for "barbarism", "the slaughter of innocents," "the rape of women in war", of those peoples and states who have been weighed and measured and examined and found wanting, set aside and discarded. Those are what it means since 1917 to be called "Russian."