So your chief criticism is that the article is understating not only the length of time that Russia has been antagonizing the West but the scope of this undermining? But at the same time, it's more or less to be expected because this is how states operate. I'm glad that somehow George H. W. Bush et al were able to help smooth the transition from two superpowers to one with little blood lost. But I'm not sure future Western leadership (either Trump or the typically hawkish Clinton) will be capable of replicating relatively peaceful geopolitical transitions if Russia's ruling class has an existential crisis that can only be assuaged by creating a new buffer of states around it.
My chief criticism is that the article is overstating the threat that Russia presents by insinuating that the actions of Russia are in some way new, novel, or unprecedented. The shit Russia is pulling is the shit state actors have pulled on each other since Augustus Caesar. In this case, neither the technology nor the methods have changed. Yes - Russia has basically said that economic warfare and propaganda are fair game but that's basically just another way of pointing out that the Americans have been doing it forever, too. I mean, here's a book wherein all the shit we're accusing Putin of doing to the US, the CIA was doing to the US. Everything old is new again. And granted - were I Estonian, I'd probably see an existential threat in Putin flexing into Crimea. But I'm not.