“After the shock of the Minsk anthrax attack subsided, the United States and its NATO allies decided - enough was enough. In August they formed the ‘Coalition of the Willing‘ with Siberia, and on September 4th they declared that the National Salvation Government in Russia was a menace to humanity and announced the beginning of Operation Arctic Sword, a campaign with one major goal - to depose the NSG government and bring democracy to Russia.”
An excerpt from a book about the Second Russian Civil War. After the fall of the Soviet Union over in 1991, Russia entered a period of instabilty and turmoil, only for a coalition of hard right-wing individuals and various oppotunistic individuals from the former Communist Party to go and take over as the "National Salvation Government". A group of powerful politicians who championed order and with a prominent religious bent, they promised to rule as an interim government, they would end up lasting for over 20 years in power and throughout that time, had become a prominent pariah state in all but name as a result. While initially rather moderate and cooperative, they would quickly become more authoritarian over time. Or more accurately, expose more and more of their authoitarian measures. However, most of this went unnoticed due to the 9/11 attacks focusing the world's attention over in the Middle East for the next decade or so.
Despite this, a growing number of people began collecting evidence of the growing atrocities and human rights violations of the National Salvation Government. This was done thanks to the Internet and information being smuggled into Mongolia and Ukraine for it. The outside world began becoming aware of the problems by 2007 though the Great Recession would also distract people from it, which emboldened the NSG into thinking they were being divinely assisted. This led to greater authoritarian measures and further issuesd with their neighbors. However, the major shock came in the Minsk anthrax attack. With the Lukashenko government in Belarus close to being toppled, the NSG attempted to do a false flag operation with an antrax attack to give Lukashenko more power and stability, but it quickly backfired as it was evident on where the sources came from, especially with the defection of some agents. Horrified by this, the Obama administration would go and work with NATO to deal with Russia, especially with the rumors similar plans were considered for Ukraine and Finland. Ultimately, Finland wold be fasttracked to join NATO with creating the 'Coalition of the Willing' for this operation. The situation had escalated so badly that Iran and China were among the first to join the Coalition. They would also be joined by the resistance army that had been growing over in Siberia as a result. So much that Siberia would secede over from Russia weeks prior to the Second Russian Civil War.
The war lasted for months as the NSG Russians drowned from intense tensions and inner conflicts. Any fears of nuclear retaliation were disabled in part thanks to many Russian nuclear scientists and engineers (many of whom would be killed as a result), and ultimately, the NSG would be ousted, with many of the leaders captured and tried in the Hague over in early 2012. However, the situation was not over. It would take many months to try to stabilize the situation and it would escalate with the release of the NSG Papers. A massive leak of classified documents of many foreign politicians and prominent figures who were connected to the NSG financially. This included many politicans within the western world and beyond, with shocking names from the US and even Israel. This led to massive scandals, lawsuits and political turmoil. Israel experienced heavily as it experienced a "Velvet Revolution" and led to whole new parties and groups taking power along with a massive loss of prestige and American funding. The Americans would see a seismic shift in their electoral systems with the GOP collapsing due to many of its politicans, patrons and thid party think tanks connected to the NSG and being replaced by the American Solidarity Party after several years while the ordeal led to many Democrats taking early retirement due to shock and stress led to the party dissolving, with the Justice Party taking its place for the mainstream American left while remaining members from both joined the Unity Party.
The aftermath would leave quite an impact on world affairs as Russia would struggle to recover due to the brain drain and quality of life drop. While the new government has been doing quite well in terms of transparency and the like, it is still recovering from the wounds. Meanwhile, while Siberia has remained independent for now, many of the ethnic Russians in the region have been leaving, either to fill in the void over in Russia itself or for new opportunity. Some have even noted the possibilty of Siberia either merging back with Russia or potentially even Mongolia (as the two governments have worked closely during the Civil War with China's aid.) China got a large and prominent boost for aiding in the coalition though apparently, the party suffered a purge with the revelaton of some NSG connections, which led to other crimes being outed. The Kim dynasty of China was also ousted and replaced by a Workers' Council with the revelation of how long North Korea knew, which infuriated China enough. Currently, North Korea is undergoing vast de-Kimification and many North Koreans have started to leave their nation, going into Siberia, or other parts of the world. The Middle East was also affected by proxy due to the various political decisons and the like. Despite all of this, there is plenty of hope in the post-NSG era, especially as the whole ordeal served to force alot of much needed reforms, introspection and political purges in the world.
"When the British and French send aid to the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Russia acted on its promise to declare war on both of them. Additionally, both Prussia and Austria would exploit this to declare war on France as well. Needless to say, the American-German-Russia impromptu alliance would prove to be victorious."