Sort of. Except Russia is the empire. There are still many federation subjects with their own "titular" ethnicities. Bashkirs, Tatars, Karelians, and more. I think that's part of the problem that they can't figure out of they're running a nation state or an empire.

But yeah, Russia hasn't successfully run a democracy for a meaningful period of time. So they don't have the collective memory to fall back on how to run a democratic country. They then believe en-masse that it's not actually possible, and that it's a sham everywhere.

It really looked like there was a period after the Soviet Union where they really tried to run a "normal" country. Then that didn't work out, so they fell back to what they're used to - having a tsar. If you look at Russian history, that's a recurring pattern. They try to modernize and be like any other European country, then that doesn't work, then they become antagonistic to the West. Then they lag behind in development. Then someone figures to try and modernize and be "normal". Rinse and repeat. I hope they can somehow break out of that cycle eventually.