It's an empire of disparate peoples brought together by conquest. The previous 'conquerors' (Muscovites) are in demographic collapse, so they've been feeding those ethnic minorities into the meatgrinder that Ukraine has become for the RF. And those minorities are starting to get upset over that. There's been both protests and sabotage in the eastern oblasts.

Meanwhile, China would like some of its old territory gotten "via unequal treaty" back and the major thing Russia has going for it (selling oil) is starting to fail as wells in permafrost have to be 'shut in'; the majors have left and any remaining engineers who learned in the (IMO quite good) Soviet educational system are in their mid 60s. The last time those wells were shut in(89-91), it took about a decade to get them flowing again. And that took the majors, not native talent who, even if they existed are *old*.

So, like you said, absolutely a winning combination.