I am dense and I have very little historical knowledge of Poland / Russia. Was there a time Poland ruled over Russia? Why the desire by Russia to control Poland ?
That was in earlier 1600s. Known as ‘times of trouble’. There is no Russian desire to control Poland nowadays.
There was a Soviet desire to control Poland in 1940s. The desire was based on a necessity to have friendly regimes for buffer zone against possible Western aggression.
One reason is that there is no natural boundary (like a sea or mountains) between Western Russia and Europe. The northern east European plain is all flat. This has been the traditional route for Western armies seeking to invade Russia in the past, like the Teutonic Knights, Napoleon, Hitler, Poland and Lithuania in the Time of Troubles, etc. Russia has historically sought to have a kind of neutralized buffer zone to its West.
When Gorbachev agreed to move Russian forces out of East Germany he was promised at the time, by Kohl, Mitterand, and George H. W. Bush, that “NATO would not move one step East” - but he never got the promise in writing.