Anony Mouse, perhaps you have never lived in the independent Soviet (Russian) republics stretching from Finland to Baku, or liberated by the Red Army.
Russia is an imperial power, emperiling its neighbours. Trouble is for the Rubel , that these distinct nations may be small, but not pushovers like the areas colonized by England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.
Of course Russians are suffering because of this at the fringes of their empire, but the population deserves a continued break from millennia of expansionism, A break it got after the Gorby era.
mir instead of more slav. please.
PS: leave the cats, (leopards), at home. you might need them there, they burn like the Ts.