alt Hacker NewsI also remember how frustrating and depressing it was that they wouldn’t allow foreign teams to help with the rescue effort. At the time it was clear that the Russians lacked the capabilities to do it. I also think in hindsight it was a sign how little interest Russia had in being part of the West.
You should look into the history of the 90s again.
Russia opened up to the West in a big way in the first half of the decade, and worked with NATO and the UN in the first half of the Bosnian war.
The result was... A complete collapse of the domestic economy, and a second half of the Bosnian war where NATO no longer felt like it needed to get Russia on board to do whatever it wanted in the region.
The degradation of this relationship was not the fault of a single party. Clinton and Yeltsin (an utter turd of a man) worked hard to have a productive relationship, but then Bush gets elected and takes a more... Unipolar view of the world. As does Putin.