Why are so many Russian rulers "great"?

>>1642713
Name three of them

>>1642719
Peter, Catherine, uhhhh

Why have Russians historicslly been unable to win wars without greatly unnumbering their foes?

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>>1642730
Ivan the Great

Russian rulers have huge problems to deal with think the time of troubles or Mongol invasions and inherit a pretty big state with lots of potential.

In short some people are born great and some have greatness trust upon them, Russian rulers historically have both things.

>>1642767
That's not true. They won a lot of battles in the past against a foe who outnumbered them.

>>1642825
That wasn't against non Christians or the brief period of Suvorov?

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Catherina the Great, born a German, turns Russia from a backwood monarchy into a European imperialistic power player, proceeds to fuck Poland thoroughly and southern nomads/Crimeans/Ottomans stop being a threat to Russia

Peter the Great, turns feudal Russia into a European country, modernizes army, conquers warm water ports in Azow and Ingermanland, defeats Sweden and enlarges empire much towards west and south.

Ivan the Great, turns tiny Moscowite principality into a major eastern European power and Mongols/nomads stop being a major threat to Russia

and most of the rest were either mediocre or outright sucked. which kinda explains why Russia is still a shitty country nowadays.

>>1642842
Honestly I think the period of Suvorov shows that Russians suffer from having too many bad generals more than bad soldiers. They're kind of like the Italians. Imagine how much of a meme Russian military would be if they lost WW2 in addition to WW1 when they had an overwhelming number advantage both times.

>>1642767
Because men is their best resource, look at WWII photos they even mounted men on tanks to stop AT Shells.

>>1642713
He was actually pretty tall.