Charles de Gaulle only ever referred to the USSR as "Russia", due to his belief that the Soviet Union was essentially driven by Russian geopolitical interests rather than communist idealism. Can this view said to have been vindicated in light of the continued political animosity between Russia and the Western powers since the fall of the Soviet Union?
It's "right" in the sense that calling the UK/Britain "England" and the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish "English" is right.
Russia (the RSFSR) was by far the largest component of the Soviet Union, with about 75% of its territory, but only made up about half of the population. Those who identified as Russians by nationality regardless of their location in the USSR also made up about half (with the percentage falling over the lifespan of the USSR).
The Russian language and ethnic Russians absolutely had a relatively privileged role in the USSR, especially in the postwar period. But this was the result of shifting nationality policies and not always a static phenomenon.
I should also note that French, like English, just has one word for Russian ("Russe"), but the Russian language itself has three different terms for whether you are an ethnic Russian (wherever you live), a citizen/inhabitant of Russia (regardless of your nationality), and a speaker of Russian (regardless of nationality or location).
I wrote a (much much longer) answer to the question "Did People Living in the Soviet Union consider themselves Russian?" which might be of interest.
With that said, there absolutely is precedent for thinking that in geopolitical terms, the states/regimes that existed before 1917, from 1917 to 1991, and after 1991 had a lot of common interests and goals. For instance, people often cite Chuchill's remark about Russia/the Soviet Union being " It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma", but leave out the next line that states that the key is "Russian national interest" (Chuchill here is thinking in terms of grand geopolitical strategy). Likewise Richard Nixon agreed with this outlook, stating in 1992 that "Russian imperialism has been a characteristic of Russian foreign policy for centuries."
So I guess I would say that De Gaulle's underlying geopolitical assessment was more or less accurate (but also far from something unique or original to him), but if he expressed this through an insistence of calling the USSR "Russia", he was being irritatingly stubborn (which for De Gaulle might not be that surprising, actually).