Moreover, Putin’s Kremlin has used the West – eager for engagement and a policy “reset” with Russia – to legitimize its authoritarian rule and to provide opportunities for its venal cronies’ integration into Western society. Indeed, by using the West to launder their dirty money, Putin and his cohorts have, in a way, avenged the Soviet Union’s collapse by undermining the West’s principles and discrediting liberal democracy in the eyes of the Russian population.