Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43351793
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/2001/06/20010629%2001-3...
And about 14 countries.
I'm not even talking about very limited influence over other ex-USSR republics. It is there but very limited.
It's more about "ice cream for 47 kopecks" rathan then anything else.
And yet, more than a million Russian lives alone were sacrificed to make the appeal reality.
Russia, like it or not, is actively busy restoring its older glorious days and unfortunately there is no sign of them coming anywhere near to a point where they can't sustain their losses any more. They're permanently losing upwards of 1000 soldiers per day, and that's not counting the injured, only deaths.
They hate science and praise the Orthodox ideology with high statism. And without a country-loving science China it's just getting a luxury present for free themselves.
They will progress like crazy with very little efforth and they could buy Russian assets for scraps.
And yes, Russia keeps invading, hacking, politically pressuring and organising disinformation campaigns to make these ex-USSR countries fall back into Russia's bloody wing.