"we, Russia, have completely won the rematch"

Mitt Romney must be so mad right now.

Russia was, to varying degrees of success, being kept at bay, for seventy years. But apparently America doesn't want that any more.

Kinda weird how Republicans did a complete 180 on that, in just ten years.

Don't the Republicans here think it's weird? I don't get it. Did you talk amongst yourselves about this making this seismic shift in the global word order, because it seems rather sudden and presented without much commentary to me.

"The next century will see a new golden era for Russia."

They had an old one?
We must not have read the same novels.

Vague memories of Russian history is things were decent under Peter the Great, things were okay under Ivan III aka the Great,

And Ivan IV would have taken the title of Ivan The Great from his predecessor
For he was a beloved Tsar who greatly improved Russia
ad he not gone crazy in the second half of his tenure
and went on a crusade to sweep out corruption across the land,
literally -- get this -- riding on a horse with a black broom
symbolically sweeping out the corruption for the peasants to see
and ruthlessly firing or executing, I couldn't say
countless government officials
crippling the effectiveness of his own country to function,
ushering in an era of economic misery
Earning the name Ivan The Terrible

That's about what I remember.