Right now, the Russian Navy is based in Murmansk (brrrr. limited routes to get out into Atlantic) and the Black Sea. The Black Sea is bad for them because Turkey (a NATO member) makes sure to maintain total control of what passes through the Bosphorous.

Technically the Baltic fleet was in Soviet times the most respected part of the navy. With Riga and Tallinn being capitals of other nations, that’s a bit less pronounced now, but coast guard and missile cruisers and marines are still important forces to have.

That could have had some use for power projection, but I think they lost it when a certain opthalmologist was expelled.

No, they made a deal with his beheading and allahuakbaring successors. Not sure how good a deal, but apparently the other side upholds it for now.

because real Americans just take their total abundance of ports that don’t freeze over completely for granted.

Honestly this is not as important as it seems. Russia doesn’t have the kind of ships to use global logistics and network of good ports as a system of power projection. Air carriers, all that. While Bosphorus is not such a big deal, of course it’s leverage, but Turkey does let Russian ships out and back.

And Vladivostok, despite being for Russia efficiently as if on another continent, is a warm water port with good location, and used as such, including militarily.

Your judgement in some way shows the same bias as you named.