Mikhail Gorbachev has died

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet Union to glasnost and perestroika.

Of course Yeltsin was a big part of the problem too.

You can lead a horse to water; but you can't make it drink. It wasn't the US' responsibility, it was the Russian peoples'.

You can't make it drink, but you can back a corrupt drunk who will shell the parliament and make sure that the Russian people know that America will never be on their side.