Russia is pursuing Great Power goals - Communism is dead as an ideology but Russian nationalism is very much alive. There is a sense that Russia is different from the rootless and decadent West. Putin’s Russia is confident of its own strength that was never true of the late USSR. Russia is still the largest country in the world. And the West has never been able to really subdue it though both Napoleon and Hitler tried and failed.
The West is weak, morally and spiritually, and Russia is filling the void. It’s not pleasant to contemplate, but there it is. Solzhenitsyn tried to warn us.
It's more than just nationalism. Nationalism in and of itself isn't a bad thing. It's a tyranny that's very much alive.