IMO russian culture/society, starting from the very early days of the empire, is drenched with imperialism and essentially a genocidal nature. This can be found from the lower strata of their society to the upper end, including authors like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, etc.
Sadly for them (and especially their neighbours), the transformation from empire to soviet and later to empire again hasn't changed this factor.
For some reason, there is an implicit assumption, in that culture, of their superiority w.r.t. anybody that isn't American.
I heard funny stories from a professor in the US telling that russians were the only PHD students that he felt like were acting as if he was beneath them, because he was "just" a Western European rather than an American (he had citizenship, but anyway).
This might get me a bunch of downvotes, but it's an unsolved problem that Europe refuses to face, and it has blown up in Europe's face pretty hard. It would be better for everybody involved to dismember russia so that it doesn't have the different *Stans to draw resources and cannon fodder from; but good luck with that. It's likely more pragmatic to "manage" them while they grind themselves out of any significance, but that is costing and will cost more lives.
For some reason, there is an implicit assumption, in that culture, of their superiority w.r.t. anybody that isn't American. I heard funny stories from a professor in the US telling that russians were the only PHD students that he felt like were acting as if he was beneath them, because he was "just" a Western European rather than an American (he had citizenship, but anyway).
This might get me a bunch of downvotes, but it's an unsolved problem that Europe refuses to face, and it has blown up in Europe's face pretty hard. It would be better for everybody involved to dismember russia so that it doesn't have the different *Stans to draw resources and cannon fodder from; but good luck with that. It's likely more pragmatic to "manage" them while they grind themselves out of any significance, but that is costing and will cost more lives.