MOSCOW — Back when it sought the right to host the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament, Russia framed its bid as part of a concerted effort to transform its post-Soviet self into a modern, model global citizen.

A female Olympic pole vault champion wooed the International Football Association by urging it to “help shape the future of Russia,” while a deputy prime minister said holding the championship would speed his country toward becoming “a completely different nation” whose people “will be brothers and sisters to the whole family of the world.”

That was in December 2010.

Then Russia proved that it harbored a rather different idea of brotherhood: annexing Crimea, backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, providing the missile battery that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and propping up a bloody dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria. Various Kremlin critics abroad died or fell ill under mysterious circumstances, while scores of activists at home were either jailed or their organizations were shuttered. Russia made “gay propaganda” illegal and weaponized social media to meddle in Western elections.

In short, when President Vladimir V. Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, he abandoned the quest for admission to the global fraternity of dominant states. Instead, he contrived to seize a spot through his own devices.