The big question is whether Russia can be deimperialized with or without breakup. Will 1991's parade of sovereignties be extended to Tatarstan, Dagestan, Chechnya, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Komy, Kalmykia, Karelia and 100 other peoples most westerners have never heard of?

Historically, Russia is nothing more than Muscovy's trojan horse empire-building and kleptocratic commodity extraction instrument, a business model its princes copied from the Mongol Golden Horde.

BTW, the 1989 population of the Warsaw Pact states was about 115m, not 300m.