[alexdns]

> Why do they say "nation state actor"

A Nation-State is the idea of a homogenous nation governed by its own sovereign state—where each state contains one nation.

[Symbiote]

And that definition doesn't describe the Russian Federation. There are many nations within Russia, ones you may have heard of are Bashkortostan (in the news this month due to protests) and Chechnya (civil wars in the 1990s). It is not a homogeneous federation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_Russia

[the_why_of_y]

Indeed, the term doesn't describe any of the 3 countries it's most often applied to (the other being China and the USA).

[tucnak]

Perhaps de jure it's not, but in reality it's clear that Russia is a hyper-centralised city-state (Moscow) in all respects.