Russia has been doing and undoing itself the whole history. Meanwhile, who suffers? The minorities. You could compile a list of cultures they destroyed across Siberia, the Pontic Steppe and the Caucasus. And this process is still ongoing.

That’s kinda the whole point of this bullshit. Russia’s entire history is “things go bad? find an enemy and attack them.” This distracts the populace and makes the ruler (at least theoretically) look “strong”. This is why “war” is the answer to almost any problem in Russia. For Nicholas II this didn’t work out though, when he attacked Japan hoping for a quick victory, but ended up losing and exacerbating problems at home, which then led to the collapse of Russia.