existing domestic oligarchs and the political class in Russia. They had no interest in handing the country over to the west.

I think this only holds true if you copy-paste Putin and the oligarchs from 2024 onto Putin and oligarchs in 2000. Putin is the reason oligarchs in Russia found ideological consistency and power ranking. During the years of Yeltsin and the early years of Putin, oligarchs were hypercapitalist outgrowths of organized crime, corrupt Soviet politican holdovers, and a new class of educated liberals leveraging knowledge and forging western ties. All of these people simply were stealing from the same pot, and trying to kneecap each other. They were all essentially vors, the oligarchs didn't care about "handing the country over to the West", they cared about personal enrichment. In fact the educated liberal oligarchs would have loved more Western ties.

In this critical period if the US blitzed strong economic ties and huge foreign direct investment, they would have easily bound Russia. If every oligarch regardless of position was offered significantly good deals from the US overnight, Putin would have either been forced into making a real mistake to capitulate to it or he would have had to fight it during a time where he was relatively weak.

The end of this period really started with the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003, that's the point where Putin's direction and dominance finally crystalized. Compared to the jailing of Khodorkovsky the killing of Boris Nemtsov or any other actions against dissidents were swatting away flies. If in 2000 the red carpet was rolled out Russia would have been captured, and would only need the typical maintenance that the US offers to Gulf States.

Right, and that’s why there are growing tensions with the west now. The only reason Turkey gets concessions is because NATO wants to have access to Black Sea, and that makes Turkey strategically important. However, the attempts at regime change clearly demonstrate that the west is not content with the status quo.

Sure Turkey is embattled, but it's restrained. That's the point. By allowing Russia to slip out of NATO's grasp Russia doesn't have the same restraints.

France may have resisted more than the rest of Europe, but it is politically captured by the US to a huge extent today. As we saw during recent elections, the Atlanticist centre was not displaced even despite being deeply unpopular with the public. France continues to pursue self destructive policy that benefits US in regards to Russia and China.

Marcon's unpopular policy decisions such as raising the retirement rate, and neoliberal economic reforms wouldn't even raise an eyebrow in Russia with the public. Just look at how quickly Ukranians who are much more annoying as a population capitulated to IMF capture of their farmlands despite the existence of constitutional barriers. Conscription is deeply unpopular in Russia since WW2, and that barely creates resistance 3 years into a meat-grinder war.

It’s also worth noting that what you’re describing is precisely the strategy that US took towards China. The US leadership thought that if they brought China into the fold, created economic ties, and so on, then eventually it would become a vassal. It didn’t work in China and it wouldn’t have worked in Russia.

The problem with the US-China relation is the ultimate problem of the US as a Capitalist Empire. Capitalists and the runaway displacement of manufacturing were responsible for the US screwing up keeping the lid on China. In 1995-2003 Russia would not have represented a real shift away from US manufacturing given your previous observation and my agreement with that Russia is in fact a gigantic strip mine for natural resources.

However, my original point is precisely that equal relations were never on the table.

I agree, however I think that they weren't on the table more from the US side, than they were from the Russian side.