"If your statement was never supposed to be read as anything more than a synonym for 'Russia is not good and not our friend' then sorry for being comparably pedantic, I guess.
The act of measuring yourself against someone else in such a way that you become convinced you’ll never reach the level they’re at–causing you to give up trying altogether.
If you spend all your energy examining the ways in which you're inferior to others, you'll comparalyze yourself. The only person you should compare yourself against is you.