>>513703598
>RUSSIA USED TO BE COOL
Russia was never cool. Some western leaders wanted it to be cool and they treated it as it was cool, because they hoped this way they would civilized it.
When The Prodigy played on Red Square (1997), US was literally sending food aid to Russia, like it was some African shithole. In 1999 president Yeltsin very much defined Russia's foreign policy for next several decades (picrel), because obviously being Africa-tier shithole, doesn't change persception on Russia's place in the world.
That was pre-Putin era.