[CCIP]

"Putin using this for propaganda purposes" - yep, totally agreed. Any administration can take lessons on how to use anything for propaganda purposes from Putin. He is a consummate politicians and has gotten away with using far, far worse things for propaganda. Most propaganda for him has been internal.

I disagree with assessing him as a threat in some sort of Cold War sense. He's not a threat, not a partner, he's just a guy with a huge country and a heap of historical baggage. He and his people are much smarter than that. Russia has real power and strategic interests and has no less right to them than anyone else. As it stands, Russia is neither a democracy, nor a USSR, nor a Russian Empire, and they're certainly not threatening your countries or ways of life in ways that some, ahem, other elements today might be. I would rather the West recognized them and worked with them more pragmatically; frankly I don't think you'll be seeing Soviet tanks anywhere in Europe anytime soon, but European tanks might well be need to run on Russian-produced gas for the foreseeable future.

I think the West is in the causeless-revenge-mode (for what?) again. In that same mode, they blew the chance to help a real democracy get established in Russia; now it's too late. It's not too late not to antagonize the current state though and work with them on peaceful terms.