Tell me how we have the high ground.

It's much easier to accept one person being in the wrong than a whole national government apparatus. You can blame one person because one person is obviously capable of nefarious acts, more so when you don't like that person. It's hard to blame a whole authoritative institution when you want to like it.

kb's trying to put it to make it look like the side is either right or wrong. I can give you a couple of first-hand examples of how Putin isn't an evil dictator (which is solely what kb implies), and I don't have to dig very hard to find you examples of the ill-doings the US government sanctioned. Vice versa works just as well. The world is more complex, which he fails to admit, for some reason. Dig at that reason, and something tells me you'll be able to push the issue forward - if His Majesty shall allow it, of course.

Don't listen to cynics telling you to stop with that silly idealism. They think that just because it didn't work for them, it can't work for you, and your persistence reminds them of your own resilience in the face of moral struggles - something they've lost a long time ago.

I don't know if it means much, but I'm with you. The US government has done a lot of good for its citizens, and it has done a lot of bad to them and to others. The Russian government has done a lot of good for its citizens, and it has done a lot of bad to them and to others. A lot of the good and the bad was sanctioned by the presidents of the two countries. As long as kb admits that both parties (or, all parties) can be wrong and right at the same time on different issues, there may be a conversation to be had; not otherwise.