Ukraine has been a giant slush fund/money-laundering operation for the Democrats (and, yes, some RINOs) for years.
It is not so much that the ruling class hates Russia, it's more that Russia has internal, rather than external, corruption
and therefore unexploitable for profit.
Remember? Gorbachev was actually a pretty cool guy to them, and Raisa was da bomb, too... she spoke five languages or whatever... When the USSR fell and Yeltsin got in as President of what was left, he was just some old dude full of vodka who happened to be in the right place at the right time.