When compared to the rest of Europe, Russia (and its satellite nations) has a lot of problems. High poverty rate, extreme levels of corruption, crime levels etc. Clearly these things don't just appear out of nowhere, supposedly they're the effects of many years of bad decision making. What is/was the actual cause of all this? It seems as if Russia shares many of the problems that the Soviet Union was facing for most of the 20th century, leading me to believe the Russian Federation mostly inherent them which makes this a historical question, rather than a modern politcal one.
If you read George Kennan's famous "long telegram" of 1946, you will get his interpretation of what "went wrong" with Russia / USSR. This analysis was pretty important, as it formed the basis of US policy towards the USSR through the Cold War.
Kennan was serving in the US embassy in Moscow at the time. He answered a request from the US state department which asked for analysis of these factors:
(1) Basic features of post-war Soviet outlook.
(2) Background of this outlook
(3) Its projection in practical policy on official level.
(4) Its projection on unofficial level.
(5) Practical deductions from standpoint of US policy.
Kennan sent his famous 8,000 word "long telegram" in response. This was widely circulated within US government circles, and became the basis of the US Cold War strategy of "containment".
Many of the predictions Kennan made about Soviet actions (based on his analysis of their fundamental issues) proved true.
Of course, the Long Telegram is not the only perspective on "what went wrong with Russia/USSR", but it is an interesting place to start, and the most influential analysis, in that it was accepted, and its recommendations followed, by the US through most of the Cold War.
Here is a link to the text:
https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/pdf/6-6.pdf
and here is a link to some summary and commentary on the 'long telegram':