This is what you don’t understand.
Russia hasn’t been a superpower for 30 years and only superpowers are allowed to go do whatever they want (Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq etc).
So saying Russia is a smaller evil because they didn’t invade anybody in 30 years is stupid because they couldn’t.
You have to understand that their clock just started now, you can only judge them as a superpower from now. Luckily since they used to be a superpower pre-1990, we can look at their actions then also.
Every superpower will invade countries if they have the power to. Don’t think that Russia will not intervene in conflicts on the other side of the globe, they will and they used to do so.
The only reason they haven’t is because they couldn’t but trust me, they will again.