The American playbook is: coup unfriendly regime, install friendly government, get trade agreements, use economic dominance to enrich the US via trade (with the occasional "set up US company to take control of natural resources"). The US was very open that they liked Putin because it seemed he would be liberalising Russia for a while, which furthered American corporate interests in Russia.

Putin turning ultranationalist has thrown a massive wrench into that plan, because now US corporations are being forced to exit Russia again. The damage that that is doing is greater than what Lockheed Martin gets for supplying weapons. It's also in part why Trump, beholden to US corporate interests, is so keen to end the war. Because that makes the US more money than keeping it going. And as it happens, that's also what Putin wants because he can pressure Trump to end the war in Russia's favour.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 week ago

The US was very open that they liked Putin because it seemed he would be liberalising Russia for a while

They liked Gorbachoev and especially Yeltsin for being a CIA stooge privatsing Russia with western capital. Putin turned away from that pretty early on.