The history of alcohol in Russia is massively, massively fucked up.
The Tsarist government had a monopoly on the production of vodka, and this monopoly accounted for a massive proportion of government revenue. It lead to a system of social engineering where the government would produce vodka at massive scale and sell it at insanely low prices. Basically, Russian peasants lived horrible lives under a brutally cruel social system, and the state responsible for that system then sold them a solution in the form of cheap and widely available alcohol. Epidemic alcoholism was a part of many historical societies, but in Russia it was deliberately manufactured by the state as a tool of social control and a way to bolster government revenues. As long as peasants were dealing with their problems by getting drunk, they weren't causing problems for the government.
The Russo-Japanese war was a bit of a wake up call for the Russian state regarding the social costs of this system. Alcohol rations were used as an incentive in the military, and the general perception was that a huge part of Russian military's underperformance was due to everyone involved being absolutely tanked. There was an attempt to institute prohibition during the first world war, which the Soviets briefly supported, but once Stalin took over everything basically returned to normal under a communist coat of paint.
Basically, the deliberate strategy of addiction the British used to weaken China by flooding the country with cheap opium is kind of what the Russian state has historically done to its own people using alcohol. Viewed through that lens, it and the culture it has created is incredibly horrifying.
I think some Russians like to promote the perception, and some westerners are willing to buy into the perception, that apparent social problems in Russia are the result of harmless cultural differences. Unlike us soft Westerners, Russians are just down to earth people who don't care about luxuries and enjoy manly shit like getting blitzed and dancing to hardbass in a piss-stained alley. This is bullshit. Russians are like everyone else, they want the best standard of living and the best opportunities available, it's just that what's available is shit and depressing because of a long history of shitty, authoritarian governments prioritizing buying tanks (and mansions) over improving the lives of their citizens or, in the case of alcohol, deliberately encouraging people to self-medicate as a way of keeping them docile.
