Where is Russia heading?

RealClearWorld - U.S.-Russia 'Reset' Won't Do Much: "Russian journalist Valery Fadeev underscores the existential nature of Russia's angst by quoting a warning from Putin last year that 'Russia would either return to the group of leading world nations or disappear.'"

I wonder if Russia's angst depend on its efforts to be in Asia at the same time as it is in Europe? That magical border region of the Urals. It would interest me to know how the Russians of the European Russia relate to the Eastern domains of the country. Ever since St. Petersburg they have aspired to become Europeanized. Stalin's intrusion into Europe during World War II is an other example.

Putin does not seem to accept that Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, used the wrong economic model and thus lost speed. He wants to dominate or otherwise it does not matter. Slowly rebuilding and trying to be friendly is apparently not an option. When they still had their oil money last year they were hopelessly agitating.

There are also indications that Russia wants to have a sphere of interest, i.e., the former satellite states. Knowing what happened to me with a suppressed learning ability over the years it is easy to envision that they want to suppress this area, for security reasons, using the same technology? Especially since they tend to have higher GDPs per capita than Russia itself. Honestly, why would they be interested in outcompeting satellites as a buffer zone?

Another question is of course how much angst comes from the Chinese border which lacks buffer states? From the above it is reasonable to assume that Russia would become mentally squeezed between a more developed China and EU.