The RF (Russian Federation) is capitalist through and through and openly opposes communism, being the direct descendant of the coup and violent overthrow of the Soviet Union, and being capitalist they will eventually enter their imperialist phase but they're not here yet.

You see the RF forces in Syria defending the legitimate government against NATO attempts at regime change, and you see them also getting closer to China which ultimately strengthens them both as well as the Global South (imperialised countries). Russia is essentially active at the side of the imperialised.

It's all skilful ploys for their own survival, but fact of the matter is there is no way the RF will be able to enter their imperialist phase as long as the US and their vassals own most of the world's resources. So the first order of business for the RF is to position themselves against the current imperialist bloc (much like how WW1 was a war to redistribute the world's resources between colonial powers), and then after that they hope their capitalism will have developed enough by that point to, combined with diminishing US imperialism, become an imperial power of their own.

The RF is in a certain unique position where they're neither imperialists or being imperialised, which are the two positions most of the world falls into. They decided to join the side of the imperialised, I think because they learned very soon from Yeltsin that Russia was not going to be joining the ranks of Western Europe as beneficiaries of imperialism, but as victims of it. There's actually videos of Putin meeting with heads of state like Clinton and Tony Blair before his election or shortly after (and there's also a video where Yeltsin says Putin didn't return his phone call when he won the election lol), they really thought they could get him to become a comprador and sell off more of Russia's resources -- what little had not been sold by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. I think the fact that Putin said no to becoming a comprador and has been improving the quality of life in Russia (which was abysmal under Yeltsin, one of the worst humanitarian crisis in history) shows some vision, for lack of a better word. But capitalism enters an imperial phase sooner or later, whether Putin wants it or not.

But here you might see a contradiction -- if Russia is able to help the imperialised world throw off the chains of NATO (being used as a shorthand here for the imperial core), how will they ensure that they get to pilfer those resources for themselves? If you help countries defend themselves, how can you then invade them and pillage them for yourself?

I don't have an answer, and I don't think Russia has an answer either -- as capitalists, they probably don't even realise it works like that. Although, like Marx said, the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. In other words, the socialist past Russia experienced informs them to this day whether they realize it or not, and you can still see some of those remnants in Putin, the way he talks about certain geopolitical developments. So maybe they do have some idea of how they would achieve that.

But honestly Russia's imperialist phase is still quite far in the future and most communists agree that the biggest contradiction (and challenge) today is NATO imperialism, chiefly the United States. It's a more pressing matter than Russia maybe possibly becoming imperialist in whoever knows how long.

Hey btw if you don't understand any of the terms here I highly recommend you look them up on https://en.prolewiki.org!