[DrTiTus]

The people I've spoken to were still paying bribes in 2021 to their teachers to graduate from university. I don't think it's accurate to conclude that it's no longer corrupt. It's engrained in their culture.

Forgive me for being logical and cynical, but I don't think the CIA "regime changed" the country to stop Ukrainian citizens having to pay bribes. What does the USA care about how much or how little the Ukrainian citizens earn or pay in bribes? The USA only cares about how much wealth and influence the USA can extract to line their own pockets. And that likely applies to Russia equally, if we're honest. This is global politics, where decisions are made by individuals, working at a level involving entire populations and land areas, lines drawn on a map, amounts measured in billions, effected with strategies to have more power in the world. If some poor schmuck has to pay money to pass university, that's their business. It's insignificant when you consider the same people claiming to be "defending a country" (both USA and Russia, again let's be fair) are willing to literally destroy unknown people's homes and end random people's lives to impose their will. I'm sure the families of people who died would have much rather paid a bribe than to have them die to further some politician's personal career. The USA sure needs a lot of weapons to promote fair voting aka "spreading democracy". If they were dropping marker pens and paper on countries, and shipping old people and cardboard booths I'd take them more seriously.

There are valid arguments from both sides. The mistake is thinking any of these people whose names you know (Putin, Biden, Zelensky, etc) know your name in return, or give a fuck about you or anyone else. They're all corrupt, and if you think otherwise, you're naive. You'll find dirt on them all if you go digging. That's the depressing part. The world is run by criminals.

I don't have the solution - humans have managed to become the stupidest and the most intelligent species on the planet at the same time. Check out our big brains. We've used our intelligence to outwit and outsmart and dominate/destroy others rather than doing "the Lord's work" and providing abundance and peace for all. The last m0f0 that tried to do the Lord's work got crucified. Everyone else since then just collected donations.