It's hard to say how much of that is true. The Russian Federation has a statist, great power orientation that may be at odds with ordinary Russians wanting to live their own lives freely. At the same time, though, over the last 20 years, Russian has probably been freer and more democratic than at any time in its history. And a "statist, great power orientation" isn't something unique to Russia or to post-communist societies.
Before the Bolshevik revolution people could move freely, own guns without limit, entrepreneurial class was growing under negligible taxation and the country wielded a world class cultural influence. No one doubted that the Russian Empire belonged to the enlightened (as was thought) Europe. Russia always had a strong local-government democracy and with His Majesty’s political reform also had a parliament and a constitution. Courts were by jury and often resulted in acquittals (something virtually impossible under the RF’s judicial system). Putin’s RF has a long time to grow to that level of individual freedom, prosperity and democratic development.
But more importantly, Putin’s system inherits from the Soviet Union and not from the Russian Empire spiritually: it is a top-down system of one-party control and universal top-down criminality. It is not marxist, true, but marxism there was replaced not by free enterprise but by universal government corruption.