Russia

With its size, population and strength, why did Russia never conquer Europe? Smaller countries like Germany and France basically did.

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If your country is big already why would you want more land

>strength
outside of maybe soviet union era (but that doesn't counts because cold war/nukes) russia was never in position to threaten europe

they should just pimp out all their hot women and conquer the world racially

They went East and got that sweet aural land

Also Russia's population was big but not that big. It's hard to mobilise an army with a population spread out so far, imagine trying to raise an army in the DRC, there's poor infrastructure to get soldiers armed and trained

>With its size
their size is a handicap, makes it hard to maintain everything and make sure you wouldn't get raped on multiple fronts
the size of russia is one of reasons why its so paranoid and defensive

To have more defensible borders and chokepoints.

youtu.be/W6LIhNgsQoc

If France and UK didnt intervene in the crimean war things would have been different
>tfw no Tsargrad

Russia is that big for the sole reason to be defensible. They expanded east so their core west of the Urals in Europe would never be threatened. An enemy like China would need insane supply lines to reach Moscow.

The problem is their core is very exposed from Europe itself, sitting on the European plain with very few natural defenses other than forests. Hence the Russian Empire's expansion towards the Caucasus, their need to control Finland or have them neutral so the Finnic Gulf would be secure. The Baltics are also in an uncomfortable position. With their position being so inland they also desired better ports so they could develop their economy through trade.

Because they were also backwards and poorly organized. By the time they got their shot together, the other European powers were already too strong themselves