i have not watched TV in many, many years but I suspect that is where a lot of the influence is.
I haven't watched TV news or read a newspaper more than a few times a year in many decades. I just know more Russian history than the average Joe, and a good bit of that history involves large scale killing, mostly inflicted by Russians against others. Which is how Russia grew to be 70% the size of the NATO countries combined, and 4x the size of the EU combined. The Russian empire is smaller than it used to be, but it is still a sprawling empire crossing 11 time zones.
The Russians basically conquered the remnants of the Mongol empire that continued being ruled by Mongols, and accepted the Mongol rulers as vassals. Another name for it might be Mongol Empire 3.0*. What I find curious is that they did not explicitly incorporate Mongolia into the empire. Even in its current diminished state, however, something like 80% of Russian territory was part of the old Mongol Empire before factoring in Slavic lands.
From a non-Russian prespective, the problem with Russia was *never* communism. It was always Russian imperialism. Nobody cares what Russians do in Russia proper. The issue is that they kept on wanting to expand their borders. If the Russians had kept Communism and dropped their imperialism, the world would be a better place. Instead, they dropped Communism and kept imperialism.
* Mongol Empire 2.0 was just before the stans went their own way with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Mongol Empire 1.0 was when the Mongols ruled Russia as well, instead of being ruled by Russia.