Russia Ukraine war

Russia had come along way after WW2. The history of isolation, brutality in war and cold war is well known, and the rise and proliferation of WMD's on both side of the wall. This seems such a long time ago, and until "late-Putin" and the rise of his dictatorship the trajectory of Russia looked encouraging for the younger population less interest in the older Soviet era, just wanting the freedoms that come with democracy.

Russia is a country of well educated people should have a very bright future, Instead, declining, retrograding back to a "wonderful" time that didn't really exist. The corruption from the top, embedded with Oligarchs being so close to Putin, is very similar to Hitler and German Industrialist/Elite, like

Reason for German failure of democracy before WW2... sounds very similar to Russia now.

"“The conservative elites in Britain and France had much more time to build compromises with democracies and parliaments than in Germany. There is probably no other country in Europe that has a higher stability of power than Britain. An observer used to the highly unstable and fragile German conditions might even feel that it was basically the same people running the country since Hastings. Yet the German elite had often been challenged and smashed, exposed to political extremism, war, destruction and revolution: the First World War and the doom of the German empire in 1918 being the most important catastrophe before the Second World War and the Holocaust."

"“Many members of the German elites thought Hitler was going to be the useful idiot who was going to play their games. They thought he could be controlled. And I come back to this metaphor of the horseman riding the horse, except that within three or four months, they discovered that they were the horse and that Hitler was the horseman.”

Putin is the horseman who similar to Hitler becoming chancellor, introduced the Enabling Act that effectively marked the end of democracy and the start of the Nazi dictatorship. All very familar.

Most countries without dictatorial leaders by their structure and international protections don;t want to return to Russia. Most are seeking protection from the type of Russian rule they are seeing in the Eastern Ukraine, war to attrition, scorched earth against local population. What is the benefit?

Hope Russia doesn't time travel too far backwards.
Joseph Stalin (1929-1953)
Joseph Stalin,the infamous dictator of the Soviet Unioncaused the mass murder of around 40 million people. He instigated a forced famine in Ukraine, set-up force labor camps, and even killed people from his own party.
Adolf Hitler (1933-1945)
German dictator Adolf Hitler will always be included in any list that talks about murders and horrific killings by ruthless leaders. His goal was to create a “master race” which he tried to carry out by terminating Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and Slavs. Millions of people were sent to concentration camps where they were tortured, worked to death, or gassed to death. Onestudyby the US Holocaust Memorial Museum suggests that the Nazis may have killed up to 20 million people, several million more than previously believed.
Mao Zedong (1949-1976)
Communist leader and founder of the People’s Republic of China Mao Zedong was hailed by many as a hero for turning China into a world superpower. Evidence suggests, however, that Zedong was the greatest mass murderer in history. Zedong killed over 45 million during China’s “Great Leap Forward” from 1958–1962. Sadly, most of his victims were Chinese.