I'm sorry what?
From my European perspective there's very little difference between the magnitude of terrifying things done by either the US then or Russia now... except maybe that Russia has less reach and power in the bigger scheme of things.
Abduction of people in allied countries to be brought to black sites, torture of inmates at Guantanamo (construction starting 2002), puerile attempts by officials at "downranking" the amount and definitions of torture inflicted upon people, varying degrees of war crimes committed while the highest instances of the world's powers debate vague points or outright lie about the very foundation of why they militarily attack another country, and this continued despite very public outrage at a few strikingly depressing "leaks" (smiling soldiers torturing inmates) or testimonies, and violence inflicted upon specific targets while keeping constant pressure on third parties to remain by the sidelines.
https://www.justsecurity.org/57301/policy-legal-implications...
> Both of Thursday’s Al Nashiri and Zubaydah judgments “are striking for their frank and clear declaration that the CIA operated black sites in Lithuania and Romania at which torture took place, with the knowing acquiescence of the host governments,” notes Just Security’s Oona Hathaway. “The Court, relying in significant part on the 2014 US Senate Committee Report, dismissed Romania’s and Lithuania’s claims that, among other things, (a) the applicants lacked credible sources of evidence; (b) the black sites did not exist in their countries, and (c) if the sites did exist in their countries, the government did not agree to them and did not know that torture was taking place at them,” Hathaway said.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210525025654/https://www.wired...
> The first of those existing rules came from Department of Justice, which in 2002 wrote a series of memos that gave a new, very narrow definition of torture. (The next year, lawyers at the DOD wrote a report that reiterated these rules.) To qualify as physical torture, the memo said that an act of interrogation would have to cause serious physical injury, "such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/05/iraq-m12.html
> A May 11 article in the Los Angeles Times exposed other methods of torture used by US forces: deliberately inflicting massive and severe burns, the use of electric shocks, and threatening detainees’ female relatives with rape. The Times article also revealed that the ICRC considers that between 70 and 90 percent of Iraqis seized and held by US forces are wrongly detained.
[...]
> After the bombing ended, US Special Forces and Dostum’s troops herded 3,000 surviving prisoners into sealed metal containers and drove them for 20 hours to Sheberghan prison. Most of the prisoners suffocated along the way. When the convoy arrived at its destination, the containers were emptied and the prisoners who had survived the journey were shot. Their remains were buried in a mass grave.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_...
> Eleven soldiers were convicted of various charges relating to the incidents, with all of the convictions including the charge of dereliction of duty. Most soldiers only received minor sentences. Three other soldiers were either cleared of charges or were not charged. No one was convicted for the murders of the detainees.
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And with all of these things, two full decades after that and with the full "freedom" of access to the internet that one has in Europe or North America, a lot of people still say with a straight face that those situations don't compare?
Talk about successful propaganda. I'm sure Russia is dreaming to continue achieving similarly too.