Sometimes, it seems that geopolitics is some kind of melodramatic soap opera, where motives can become unclear and inexplicable. The rhetoric can sometimes come across as vague and convoluted.
Centuries ago, one might look back and find greater clarity. The enmity between Russia and the West back in those days could have been attributed to a religious dispute. The Orthodox Russians could not see eye to eye with Western Catholics and Protestants.
But through most of the past millennium, Russia was hardly deemed much of a threat to Europe, as they were under the Mongol/Tatar Yoke for centuries, which also threatened Europe. The Ottoman Turks and the Moors in the West were also deemed serious threats to Europe, while Russia was pretty much off the radar at that time.
Eventually, Russia would grow in power and become instrumental in the defeat of Napoleon. You'd think that such a thing would have led to more friendly and cordial relations with their allies such as Great Britain. Europe was going through growing pains of her own in the early stages of industrialization, culminating in the Revolutions of 1848 and the rise of nationalism in multiple European states.
Britain's role in the Crimean War would indicate that they wanted to maintain the Ottoman Empire as a kind of buffer zone to prevent the Russians from pushing further south. Although the Russians had a longstanding enmity with Turkey going back centuries, the British somehow viewed it as a threat to their empire, which is kind of curious when you think about it. Russia was essentially landlocked, and whatever outlets to the sea they could gain were frozen much of the time.
The British might have also seen Japan as an effective buffer against Russian expansionism in the far east.
So, for whatever reason, Britain started seeing Russia as a threat to their global interests during the 19th century, but then, the growing threat posed by Germany turned their attentions to Germany. Their quick defeat of France in 1871 made France look weak. Russia was also starting to face various internal difficulties as the seeds of revolution were already being planted. I think the British were made nervous by Kaiser Wilhelm, who was a bit of a nutcase. There's a story about how he was 5 years old, at some state funeral in Britain, where he bit the ankle of some British royal (who apparently had hemophilia).
The relationship between France and Russia has always been interesting, as they seemed to have warmer relations than between Britain and Russia (or America and Russia). For the French, after the debacle of 1871, getting Russia on their side was an important foreign policy consideration. But the Russians were led by an incompetent, weak, and vacillating Tsar.
Sorry for the long digression, but there's a long history that needs to be considered for anyone to really get a clear picture. The current narrative seems to appeal to those with short attention spans and vague, incomplete understandings of history that it can get rather confused.
But the bottom line seems to be apparent that, regardless of what kind of government they have or what they've actually done in the geopolitical realm (both the positive and negative), there has been a longstanding, centuries-long mistrust and disdain for Russia that seems to emanate from the West. I don't know what it is, and sometimes it subsides, such as during periods of temporary alliance.
We tried to work together during the Detente era, and once Gorbachev came to power and introduced openness and the restructuring reform program, it appeared that Russia itself was making profound, positive changes for the better. What more could the West have asked for? The Berlin Wall fell, the Warsaw Pact disbanded, the Soviet Union had literally voted itself out of existence.
In America, I recall there were many who were expecting a huge "peace dividend," since the danger was now over and there was no longer any need for a big bloated defense budget and a huge war machine scattered around the globe. There was no longer any need to embroil ourselves in the various hot spots around the world, since there were no longer any worries about Soviet expansionism.
But based on their subsequent actions around the world, the US government demonstrated that it was never about "Soviet expansionism" at all. The whole thing was revealed to be an utter fraud.
But underlying all of that, the common thread of centuries of history would demonstrate mistrust and antipathy towards that nation.
