The difference is the Hong Kong citizens weren't installed in all levels of local, state, and federal position within the government.
The amount of buildings getting destroyed and groups popping up all over America from California to New York will be way too big of a theatre for a federal government as deeply incompetent and corrupt as this one is, from stopping them in any meaningful way.
Hong Kong resisted an outside military with the forces and wealth of an invading army.
Yours is a false dichotomy.
As if Putin gives even the smallest fuck about Russia's veterans. They're just useful idiots to him, just like Dump's "suckers and losers".