Historically, Russia imagines itself with two kinds of neighbors - servants or threats. They are incapable of thinking of any other possibilities.
Ah, the Russians. They’re either at your throat, or at your feet.
Never forget the “power” of evolution over the span of generations in political situations: You get what you breed for.
For centuries, the ONLY survivors in Russia were (1) those who are immoral enough to kill wantonly and regularly: to destroy anybody between them and food, clothing, and shelter. Power meant survival, loss of power was death - immediate and at the point of a sword or musket, or slowly by starvation, cold, and disease on the farms, cities or the prison camps.
There was another class - more numerous, but it survived by breeding faster than it died: The serfs and slaves who lived only because they “tolerated” the oppression of the nobles and Cossacks and Mongols and Vikings and Khans and (lately) the Communists: You (your family) survived if you didn’t not disturb the status quo. Rebel, try to change things, try to “grow” more crops or own a successful farm, or get money or own a business or succeed, and you die.
So, the Russian (Slavic) model became oppression (crime and corruption insiders within the corrupt establishment), or “tolerate” the oppression and hope not be noticed by the establishment while it spent its time oppressing others.
(Slavery? Well, those who rebelled (mentally and physically!) were killed, were punished and were denied children of their choices. Those who accepted slavery (actually, those who did not actively rebel too much against their imprisonment and confinement in the slave ships and pens and caravans), lived. Only those who did NOT rebel and who did NOT fight their African slave-owners/kidnappers survived.