When President Trump warned German leaders that they were excessively dependent on Russian energy, they smiled at him with condescension, gave him coy looks that suggested that the US President did not know what he was talking about.
This year has been notably different in welcoming the end rather than exceptional individual achievements, Geo-political developments, economical headwinds or natural calamities.
If Putin is a dictator and human right violator and strangulated democratic aspiration of Russians and waged war against tiny neighbor, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in comparison is no less brutal in his own country going by the reports of London based Amnesty International - 2021, US based Foreign Policy Focus -2021, etc.
Apart from American threat, Russia can’t trust revisionist and expansionist Communist China in her resource rich Eastern frontier though they are allies now.
Prominent presence of Taiwan’s de facto ambassador in the US Presidential inauguration on 20 January 2021 overcoming four decades of precedent was presumed by many geopolitics experts then that Joe Biden true to his words would bring America to world central stage contrast to his predecessor Donald Trump policy of withdrawal with visible exception of Indo-Pacific
The United States has been using its global superpower status to sanction various countries as per its own volition in order to maintain its status quo in world politics.