President Vladimir Putin has successfully mobilized a sense of militant patriotism in the Russian public to wage war in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s propaganda builds on seeing Russia as both victimized by the West and entitled to regional dominance in the former Soviet territories. In such Russian imperial imagination, enforcing the Russian language, culture, and rule on non-Russian populations is not colonialism but a gift of greatness. Critics among intellectual and liberal elites in Russia condemn the regime but tend to shy away from questioning Russia’s imperial identity. To solve Russia’s antagonistic relations with its neighbors, both the Russian state and society need to confront their country’s imperial identity.