AQ brings up a valid point, not that I think MR did anything wrong, because I don't. He was faced with no good options and only my offer to keep him around long enough to score tiebreaker points. Why not go with what you can salvage? I will say that, if it were not MR or another player I thought I could trust, I probably would not have allowed Russia to live at all. Thats on me though, not on him, so make of it what you will.
Honestly I have trouble being bloodthirsty enough to go for a win much less a solo against some of the folks around here once I have started working with them as allies. Bats, MR , DK, Grumpy, Spit, 22, plus a few others. As long as I don't start the game with them as allies I don't have issues trying to whoopem but, if it comes to betrayal, yeah I can have trouble with the idea of totally stabbing my 'online friends' just for a few extra points on a leader board. I don't see MR as having that 'weakness' though, so again that one is on me as well. Finally there is certainly something to be said for the 'human nature' factor, remembering who was a good buddy and who totally lied to you for a tiny advantage tends to carry over from game to game and it can be telling when you are thinking about which way to jump in a truly 50-50 situation.
The flip side for me in this specific game was I knew going into this round that I probably did not need more points and only really needed to make sure no one solo'd over me that could knock me out of the final table. I was much more intense in the 1st 2 games than I have been in the last 2.