I find the negative comments particularly interesting, seems like you might have hit a nerve.

That said, I'm expecting the Russian Federation to fade - but for other reasons, notably the upside-down demography, the terrain (difficult for agriculture and transport, no physical borders), and probably most salient, the current trend of sending primarily non-ethnic-Russians into the Ukranian meatgrinder. Pretty sure it's turning into a sore point with those populations.

The West really blew it in not doing all it could to help Gorbachev transition the USSR into Euro-style 'socialism'. We doubted his intentions, but the situation was clear. This is one of those might'a, could'a, should'a things, but had alQaida not launched a successful attack on 9/11 (successful in the sense that it completely derailed the US into a 'war on terror') there could easily have been a different outcome. But we took our eye off the ball...