I think most people don't realize what a giant empire the US is. A third of the US would still be larger and more powerful than any country in Europe. Russia can't even finish taking over a backwoods nothing country like Ukraine. We are not getting "absorbed", this isn't 200 AD.
My only exception is that Russia is working on the Ukraine surgically. They could have steamrolled the whole territory, but have minded the optics.
A power vacuum caused by the dissolution of the US will definitely encourage a move to absorb territory. It already happened to Cuba when they separated from the US. USSR would still have influence there if they hadn't dissolved themselves. The lesson we learned with Cuba has inspired the US to maintain a diplomatic relationship that has prevented this from happening again. The dissolution of the largest superpower the world has ever known will cause unprecedented reactions. Nothing that happened in 200AD was remotely close to what's coming now.
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