I will second that. There are a lot of misconceptions about Russia and Putin. Russia is not a backward country. Putin seeks to reestablish the greatness of Mother Russia in the tradition of Peter the Great, and he is not doing so by orchestrating regime changes abroad. Ironically, he is more of a standard-bearer for the self-determination of sovereign nations than the US have been in decades. And before anyone says anything about Crimea, may I remind them that the Crimean people themselves chose Russia in a referendum.