It’s imperialism if it has the characteristics of imperialism, wishing it really hard because that’s a word that would be an amazing gotcha isn’t enough. Imperialism is, to really overly simplify it: the extraction of surplus value, often in the form of labor through financial instruments from one country to another. Russia’s position in the world is not that of imperialist extraction (except in the participation prior to the sanctions in the western financial sector) since capital was still consolidating its power over the working class in Russia, given that its capitalist system (another western imposition) wasn’t developed enough to do so, and it was still mostly an export economy.

Now, I eagerly await for the flat-earth level analysis of “but I see it and I think it is imperialist”.