The one thing that holds Russia back, and has always held them back, is the systemic political corruption at all levels, from local to national.
Ukraine is exponentially worse...
Much of it is a leftover from the Soviet Legacy, but it goes back much farther than that.
And this is what the leadership of the modern Democratic Party aspires to.
The source of that unrelenting corrupton is collective failure to acknowledge and take responsibility for past sins committed as a society. Russia is in need of their own version of de-Nazification.