To begin with addressing the last question: in the scope of macrohistory, the tentative (in some cases, not-so-tentative) identification of Russia is that it is a failed civilisation, of sorts. I have advocated this thesis myself, although I do put some caveats in place regarding some details.
As discussed a few pages back, the gist of it is that Russia -- or rather: Kievan Rus' or its prospective successor(s) -- had the evident potential to become the nexus of an inchoate Orthodox High Culture. Vladimir the Great, in this context, may be viewed as the great founder-king who put the aspirational ideal in place. Especially considering the decline (and then-upcoming demise) of the Eastern Roman Empire, these aspirations in such a direction had clear promise.
The trajectory of this emergent civilisation, however, was disturbed by the Mongol invasions, and most especially by the boyarism of the Golden Horde (which soon descended into despotic thuggery without the barest hints of nuance). From this mess, Mucovy bubbled to the top as the ultimate claimant to hegemony within the Russian lands. Muscovy had been a collaborator of the Mongols, and had in fact adopted the tactics and motives of boyarism. The legacy of thuggish despotism was thus not reduced to an unpleasant interval, but was institutionalised by a subsequent native regime.
Muscovy quarreled with the other Russian states (most of which had less meat-brained inclinations), and by brute force defeated them. (Their treatment of Novgorod in particular is quite revealing, and hints at the future history of Russia -- and its treatment of all neighbours -- all the way through the present.)
The princes of Muscovy did indeed make themselves Tsars of all Russia, and pretended to the hegemony of an Orthodox world-system, but they failed in giving a meaningful shape to it. It remained always disjointed. This to such an extent that Peter the Great (realising the state of his empire) attempted to integrate Russia (and thus implicitly all Orthodoxy) into the Western Christian world, thus hoping to produce a larger, joint world-system encompassing all meaningful parts of Christendom. A world-system in which he hoped Russia could play a major role. (Essentially, he wanted Russia to pull off something like the Meiji Restoration; learning from the West and lifting itself up to become a power of greater consequence in the wider world.)
Peter's attempts were only partially successful, and many were reversed later. Especially in the intellectual sphere, there was a sort of knee-jerk reaction by the Russians. Rather than admitting they were hardly as refined as the West, they began to decry the West, and to revel in their own boorishness, which they presented as "Orthodox purity". That sentiment, I hardly need to explain, still lives in Russia now. Indeed, it is the only sort of national sentiment they have left. And something only held together by hatred and envy produced by an inferiority complex never has a glorious future ahead of it.
The reason why things are now so very bad as they have become -- much worse than it ever was even under the Muscovite despots, those Romanov Tsars -- is that the Russians reacted to their internal problems (and their external military defeat) by bringing into power the worst socio-political system to have been devised in human history: communism. No greater mistake could have been made. As I've outlined above, they already faced major issues, but before the Great War and its aftermath, there was a future. Russia was boorish and thuggish, and drenched in despotism, but those things don't necessarily stand in the way of geo-political success. Russia was in the middle of a demographic boom, and it was catching up technologically.
There was, prior to the war, still a possibility for the consummation of the Orthodox civilisation. It would have been a far less refined and elegant version of the idea than might have been manifested by better-suited helmsmen, in the absence of a Mongol yoke... but still. There was a way.
And then, communism. The USSR. The brute amongst brutes. The meat-brain amongst meat-brains. Communism killed Russia. Its demographics collapsed. Its economy became a joke. In vainly trying to contend for world-hegemony against the West, the USSR burned into self up from the inside out. What we see now, what Putin governs, is the husk of a culture that was already mangled centuries ago, and has been brutally gang-raped and immolated since. It is a blackened shell, no longer suitable for restoration. Fit only to be torn down so that the land may be re-used for new development.
In practice, this means that it matters not one iota how things play out in Ukraine. Even years before, I noted that Russia came dangerously close to collapse in the '90s, and that Putin's strongman rule had in fact postponed that. Postponed... but not averted. My prediction has been, for quite some time, that Russia will fall apart not too long after Putin croaks or is removed. Recent events have only strengthened my conviction in this regard, and in fact have raised the distinct possibility that Putin himself will cause the bloody anarchy that he had himself postponed to begin with.
The war in Ukraine has become a boondoggle. Even if Russia "wins", in that it keeps everything it now holds... the war has already cost more than they can bear. The conquered land is ruined, and getting profit from it will take longer than Putin has. This foolish war has already driven the last few nails into the coffin of Russia. If Putin "wins", he can stay for a bit longer, overseeing an economically and demographically blasted country, and when he dies, it'll fall into anarchy. And if he loses, if he's driven out of any major part of the conquered lands... then he gets a bullet, or a noose, or some poison... and Russia falls into violent anarchy just a bit sooner. Either way, the fundamental outcome is the same.
China is already waiting to benefit from this. (Here we get to the other posts I've quoted.) For years now -- in fact, decades -- China has built up a demographic strategy in the Russian Far East. Their goal is evident to all. Once Russia goes down, China marches into to bring order and security. And to get as many natural resources under their control as they can. At the same time, if the West if half-way sane, we can expand our influence into Western Russia. Imagine denazification and Marshall Aid, writ large. In truth, the culmination of what Peter the Great imagined, albeit on terms rather less favourable to truncated Russia. The inclusion of the Russian heartlands into the West-- both territorially and culturally. Because they are now a ruined Fellachenkultur, they can, must and will be given a new cultural frame-work: a Western one. From a Western perspective, rump-Russia will be "made normal" at last.
The only question is where the border will be, between the Western world-system and the Chinese world-system. It could be the Urals; it could be a point further East if we are ambitious; and it could be a point further West if we are imbeciles and let China have it all.
