I would argue, rather, than the character of the peoples ruled by the Soviet Union was warped from what it had been, depraved in fact.
Five points:
Many of the cruel tyrants often described as Putin's predecessors to prove the "Russian character" thesis were not, in fact, Russian: Ivan the Terrible, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Beria.
Before WWI, Russia was developing in some promising directions. Read about Peter Stolypin, for instance.
Over the past 100+ years, one could argue that the Russians have been more sinned against, than they have sinned, in relation to other peoples. Aside from Hitler, remember that Lenin and Stalin were neither of them Russian.
But the anti-Christian and anti-traditional propaganda of that crude, cruel murderer, Joseph Stalin, and the teachings of "communism abolishes all eternal truths" Karl Marx (also not a Russian) ultimately seem to have made their mark on the Russian character: Putin is one result.
Solzhenitsyn well describes how prisoner and thug culture impacted almost everyone in the Gulag. That may also have helped incubate Wagner types.
I feel for Russia. It is capable of producing a Tchaikovsky, a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoy, a Solzhenitsyn.
God save it from itself.