Interpreting the Russian empire problem in psychotherapy terms plays into the hands of Russia's blame the West useful idiots lost in Russified Whataboutistan, however unintentionally. It opens the door to legitimizing talk of Putin's state of mind, Russia's "security concerns" and imaginary red lines. This is purely an empire demolition problem and psychotherapy is not in the West's or Ukraine's geopolitical job description.
Russia is not a country as you and I understand it. It's an institutional and geopolitical mafia with a flag prison of peoples cross-dressing as a nation. It's Muscovy's kleptocratic extractive land-based colonial commodity export empire building tool built on the genocidal conquest of 100+ subjugated peoples. I realize that's a descriptive mouthful. But a complete list of its features has more explanatory power, telling us why this is so:
1. Russia as a tech importer loses wars without a more advanced western ally.
2. How it's always on the losing side of imperial rivalry as a land-based colonial empire on the periphery of the western-built trading system (Dutch then English/British then American) developed by maritime empires. WWI and WWII showed how land-based empires lose to maritime empires. Full stop. Reread Immanuel Wallerstein to understand this.
3. Therefore, the gap between Russian ambition and state capacity is permanent. Watch Stephen Kotkin explain this in his Hoover Institution interview videos.
4. Power is purely occupative, with legitimacy based on holding power, not on power based on legal legitimacy. Proof is in power seizure by seduction by Catherine the Saxon courtesan. Consult Catherine's lover, Grigoriy Potemkin, the village builder whose bones Russia recently relocated out of liberated Kherson, about this.
5. #3 combined with #4 tells us that autocracy to play geopolitical catchup is Russia's version of the Einsteinian version of insanity: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a better result. When dealing with a congenitally insane counterparty be mindful of a permanent rule of empire demolition: never, ever fail to finish the demolition job since leaving it half done inevitably means having to do it again (Germany 1918-19). That's what we did in 1991 by helping Russia stop the parade of sovereignties at its border and letting it keep its Security Council seat even after it started the Transnistria conflict in Moldova in 1992 and in Georgian Abkhazia in 1993-94.
6. Peace, as opposed to a frozen conflict Korea type armistice, without deimperializing Russia is impossible.
7. Conclusion: Like the alcoholic in the movie The Lost Weekend, empire-aholic Russia will reform only when it is confronted with a stark choice: full North Koreanization that Putin has embarked on or rejoining Europe under these conditions:
1. Full restoration of Ukraine's 2013 borders.
2. Full payment of war and environmental damage reparations to Ukraine.
3. Russia's entire political, military and media war leadership takes a one-way flight to the ICC in The Hague.
4. Written and broadcast on state TV acceptance of full Ukrainian sovereignty including joining the EU and NATO.
These are terms Kasparov, Khodorkovsky and Navalny view as necessary. Kasparov goes further in calling for regionalization of Russian institutions and making the regions' membership in the federation completely voluntary and legalizing the regions' right to secede. Khodorkovsky says be careful of what you wish for about Russian breakup.
For a longer form exposition about whether breakup is necessary to deimperialize Russia: https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/to-win-the-peace-de-imperialize-russia-and-de-colonize-eurasia-f6927c32609d
