The short of it is, no. Russia is NOT imperialist. It does not fit Lenin’s criteria.
It tried to join the imperialist bloc of western NATO nations after the fall of the USSR several times but was rebuffed and rejected bluntly. It then tried coexistence, integration and as we can see that has all fallen apart.
Throughout the post-soviet period Russia has maintained friendship with nations of the global south including China, Cuba, Venezuela, and other members of the group of resisting nations to western hegemony and imperialism including Iran.
Russia acts as a counter-weight to western imperialism. It is by action anti-imperialist. This was not its choice but the consequence of historical realities and choices made by the west as well as its own choices.
Russia is in fact a victim of the ruling imperialist bloc’s violence and attempts to destroy it and subjugate it’s peoples.
Russian capitalists have no choice but to be part of this alliance against imperialism. It’s either that or be destroyed and made either very junior partners with a tiny share of the plunder or liquidated entirely as a class by the western bourgeoisie in favor of their nation being split up and ruled by various comprador types.
Immediately after World War I — after the defeat of Tsarist Russia — Russia was in danger of being balkanized, of becoming a colony. Here I quote Stalin, who said that the West saw Russia like they saw Central Africa, that they were trying to drag it into war for the sake of Western capitalism and imperialism.
The end of the Cold War, with the West and the United States triumphant, once again put Russia at risk of becoming a colony. Massive privatization was not only a betrayal of the working classes of the Soviet Union and Russia, it was also a betrayal of the Russian nation itself. The West was trying to take over Russia’s massive energy deposits, and the US came very close to acquiring them. Here Yeltsin played the role of “great champion” for the Western colonization effort. Putin is not a communist, that much is clear, but he wants to stop this colonization, and seeks to reassert Russian power over its energy resources.
Therefore, in this context, we can speak of a struggle against a new colonial counter-revolution. We can speak of a struggle between the imperialist and colonialist powers — principally the United States — on the one side, and on the other we have China and the third world. Russia is an integral part of this greater third world, because it was in danger of becoming a colony of the West.
It gets a bit tiresome going over this so many times so excuse the short answer.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Russia https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Imperialism
https://mronline.org/2019/01/02/is-russia-imperialist/
The short of it is, no. Russia is NOT imperialist. It does not fit Lenin’s criteria.
It tried to join the imperialist bloc of western NATO nations after the fall of the USSR several times but was rebuffed and rejected bluntly. It then tried coexistence, integration and as we can see that has all fallen apart.
Throughout the post-soviet period Russia has maintained friendship with nations of the global south including China, Cuba, Venezuela, and other members of the group of resisting nations to western hegemony and imperialism including Iran.
Russia acts as a counter-weight to western imperialism. It is by action anti-imperialist. This was not its choice but the consequence of historical realities and choices made by the west as well as its own choices.
Russia is in fact a victim of the ruling imperialist bloc’s violence and attempts to destroy it and subjugate it’s peoples.
Russian capitalists have no choice but to be part of this alliance against imperialism. It’s either that or be destroyed and made either very junior partners with a tiny share of the plunder or liquidated entirely as a class by the western bourgeoisie in favor of their nation being split up and ruled by various comprador types.
A thread from Genzhou (archived) on this: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/232591
Shortest socialist answer
To add onto this, I really like Losurdo’s analysis: