> Egor Gaidar [1] is an excellent source

This is published in English as [1] Yegor Gaidar, "Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia".

TLDR is maybe this [2] write-up of a talk, 8 pages, very interesting.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia...

[1] https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaid...

To reiterate nooron's point, the West wasn't exactly helpful during the oil shock that ended the USSR and the transition to democracy, but to blame the US for the oligarchs / theft of public resources is going way too far.

BTW, if anyone is interested in the fall of the USSR, Yegor Gaidar, an economist, acting Russian PM from June '92 to Dec '92, and architect of the shock therapy reforms immediately post dissolution of the USSR wrote a book about it. I highly recommend it if you're interested in economic history.

This appears to be a brief summary of the argument: https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/03/13/Soviet-Union-Oil/

book: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia...

Yegor Gaidar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar

Yegor Gaidar's book is on Amazon:

"Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia" http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia/...

The description and reviews are very comprehensive.