Russian proficiency can be picked up after 40-60 hours of instruction. Learning the alphabet and basic vocabulary isn’t hard.
And then there is grammar, spelling, forming the correct letter shapes, placement of the one accent, and all the acronyms, the specialty acronyms ... but learning to count from one to twenty is easy. Your idea of basic proficiency and mine differ wildly ... 60 hours will basically get you to early Russian preschool level. Basic proficiency takes months of intensive learning, years to become truly proficient.
Russian vocabulary is dependent on the grammar, grammar is dependent on what is being said/written ... Learning that every word in Russian is or can be declined is a tough nut to crack, let alone use to any proficient degree.
Russian is usually rated harder to learn than any other language, except English, which is the most difficult of all; the more flexible the language is, the more difficult it becomes to learn.
Test your basic Russian proficiency by translating Yevgeny Yevtushenko - for instance “Babiy Yar”. He translated all or most of his poems into English so you can compare your basic ability or lack thereof.
Mandarin on the other hand has so many similar tones, so many characters it is often very confusing. To my knowledge, Mandarin is a ridged, bureaucratic language - once you memorize the characters and the tones - you are in.