Russia’s death-rate has been exceeding it’s birth-rate since the collapse of the USSR. And Texas has a bigger economy than Russia. Yet we are supposed to believe Russia wants to rule the world? It is a neocon fantasy.
You have a very western way of viewing civilization.
They don't look at the world in terms of nations. They aren't nationalists.
Thats not how eastern civilizations view things.
Thats not how the Soviet Empire worked.
What language did they speak in the Soviet Union?
They spoke Russian in all of those soviet states.
They consider the historical countries of all of the soviet union countries as historical Russia.
They still consider corners of territory inside countries like Kazakhstan part of Russia because they are ethnically Russians.
They still consider people outside of Russia even who live in the United States who are ethnically Russian part of "Russia".
It doesn't matter how rich and how many donuts their country can buy what matters is power.
That means when they install a puppet regime in South America like Venezuala they can use asymmetric tactics to cause tremendous damage to our country.
Destabilizing the region and causing millions of people to flood into our borders and drain our resources doesn't cost a lot of money.
They just have to bribe some really corrupt people in the region with a few billion dollars and some guns.