General Discussion

Actually, it's a bit worse.
Russia's ethnic "elite" are White Russians - Northern Slavs (Muscavoy, Belarussian, Northern Ukrainian, northern Armenia), but they're the minority in Russia itself. They've also pretty much Westernized. Educated, middle class, privileged - even a poor ethnic Russian from a farm or small town outside of Moscow generally has access to modern amenities and infrastructure. They live like late 20th Century Western Europeans, at the very least.
The rest of Russia isn't so privileged.
The rest of Russia is comprised of basically tribal states- Siberia, all the 'Stans, Georgia ... All rather poor, with different ethnic cultures and more importantly, different outlooks and understanding of hierarchal authority.
They're not Russian the way Putin and the Oligarchs understand Russian citizens to be....they're peasants. Disposable, like livestock. Living in the 19th or early 20th century, if they're lucky.
And they're not the type of Russian the ruling classes recognize as the real Russian demographic.