That's a narrative. Over my life, I've seen 4 regimes and heard about a dozen historical narratives about the particular place I was born in, each radically different from the others and exaggerated to ridiculous proportions. Enough to understand that they're all mostly nonsense. One massive red flag is dealing in absolutes, another is "it's always been like that".
Sure, it's easy to dismiss anything as 'narrative, therefore nonsense'. I will give you another narrative to dismiss: oil-rich countries are waging wars more often than oil-poor countries, and they are starting them when the oil price is high. Russia is an oil-rich country. And there are several other reasons why things are the way they are.
