The U.S. was well on its way to turning Russia into a U.S. vassal after the fall of the U.S.S.R until Vladimir Putin came along. Which explains the continuing antipathy. From John V. Walsh at unz.com:
The Disastrous Russian Depression Resulting from Western supervised “Shock Therapy.”
The magnitude of this economic catastrophe was spelled out tersely in a recent essay by Paul Krugman who wondered whether many Americans are aware of the enormous disaster it was for Russia. Krugman is quite accurate in describing it – but not in identifying its cause.
The graph below shows what happened to Russia beginning in the early 1990s as a result of the economic policies that were put in place under the guidance of U.S. advisors, the economist Jeffrey Sachs, perhaps the foremost among them. Sachs describes his contribution here. These policies drive an economy abruptly from a centrally planned economy with price controls to an economy where prices are determined by the market. This process is often described as “shock therapy.”
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 