Yes, that is, and has been part of the games they play. Russians have always been highly nationalistic, and their breakup after the cold war was very, very painful to their ego's, but the Nationalism stems from successive Russian governments that created it by singling out various enemies to demonize and feed the nationalistic tendencies.
I probably could say that we do it to a much lesser degree and without the need to redirect public angst to some outward target. That is because compared to them, we are indeed truly free. They are not, and the short time they were, they could not deal with it and self destructed. They just did not give it the time necessary and could have been successful.
It's a damn shame, because Russia will now cause the rest of the axis of evil to coalesce around their lead, and they have now officially kickstarted the politically powered drive towards WWIII which if it were to occur could lead to the destruction or severe damage of the entire world economy which will set us back decades if not longer.
They are not going to stop until concessions are made by the West, and if that happens, then they will try again for more. This is a given truth. The reality is that if not stopped here and now, we will have warfare in the future and it won't be conventional for long.
One can only hope that China will make a wise and prudent decision to drop the pretenses, and keep it's self out of this for the time being. They need to side with the West in terms of the U.N. Plus they cannot get involved in the European territorial disputes that are soon to come. If they use their power wisely, they will keep this from going critical mass too early for a diplomatic solution. If not, they will speed it up like sugar in a three year old.
I think if we get tied up with the Russians, China is going to make a bid for the “Northern Resource Area”. Just like in Tom Clancy’s “Bear and the Dragon”, just this time we are not help the Russians. I would say some folks are looking at the old Nato maps and seeing what bases need to be put back online or old Soviet bases we can take over.