Russia isn't afraid of NATO or US invasion, it's afraid of democracy, a foreign concept in that country. Royalty, communism, fascism are political labels put on a brutal patriarchal social structure that values the more primitive law of the strongest. It is no fluke that transitions in that country are revolutionary and just as extreme. It is also not surprising that alcoholism and physical abuses are rampant in Russia.
Everyone is suddenly a self-declared expert on chasing Russian Oligarch assets. Total witch hunt. Perhaps we should turn over a few stones to discover the immorality and corruption and chronic theft in our ranks first before pointing fingers at others. The writeup in the link is not even worthy of a 3rd grader. We all know oligarchs stole public assets in the heights of the post cold war chaos. What we don't know is all the insider trading in US congress, Fed, the revolving doors between the SEC and CFTC and financial firms, the chronic under-minding of law and order by NOT prosecuting financial crimes EVER but always settling for financial payment. For a long time, if ever, has there been no equal treatment and accountability for wrongdoing regardless of personal wealth.
How is that any worse than skid row, broken bridges, airports that look like they were bombed and never rebuilt from the 1970s, opioid deaths, homelessness and child poverty, lower and lower educational standards, yet billions of dollars spending on defense (though the country has never been attacked since Pearl Harbor). High speed trains all over Europe and Asia, and Amusement park or zoo kiddo trains in the US. Tainted (or should I say poisonous) water supplies, a total political impasse that goes straight through the entire nation. A ridiculous and totally absurd heath care system. Financially strained personal, corporate, and government accounts. In God we trust.... Sometimes its much better to never experience what wealth and money tastes like, a life most Russians live, than living in the middle class or below in the US and feeling taunted and taken complete advantage of by the 1%ers who make their own laws, get away with wrongdoing and corruption, just pay a few bucks and you are out of jail free. Perhaps life in Russia is really not all that bad when you keep things in perspective. At least I see a lot more ordinary Russians smile in daily life than Americans. Unless the fake humor, eyelids, and plastic tits on social media are interpreted as happiness, of course. Do we have a freer system and something that approximates democracy? Yes and we should be thankful for that. But does that mean we can't do better elsewhere?