In the alternative view, an elite coterie of self-righteous academics seek not to level the playing field but to dominate it, imposing their particular world view on everyone else.
Through the decades, however, the masses have responded most intensely not to calculated appeals to their self-interest (though that didn't hurt) but to selfless, if not self-sacrificing, crusades for what is seen to be just and righteous.
But what the Russians are absolutely not amenable to, what history has repeatedly shown they reject outright, is a bullying campaign of self-righteous moral condemnation in which they are expected to offer a number of unilateral concessions.