I do recal having participated in some discussions - involving the then local Russian air attache here in Vienna - that touched this topic too, several years back. The attache in question used to work in the development of avionics for Su-24s, for example.
Anyway, the matter was actually about the Russian aviation industry, especially Su-27s, and their development. And, eventually, we've touched also the philosophy and drive behind what the Russian designers do, how and why.
Basically (and this came out only after I think the second bottle of vodka), the matter was such that all they wanted to see were manuals of various Western aircraft and equipment. That's what - just for example - Sukhoi should be ready to pay small fortunes for. Their designers do not care about practical experiences of their pilots or ground crews in Chechnya, or in various African conflicts the least. They also don't care about possible requirements of their potential customers (foremost the Chinese and Indians). All they wanted to see were manuals - especially those of US aircraft - or related reports about future developments. They wanted the most basic, as raw as possible, data about technical capabilities, so they could analyse them.
And, once they'd get these into their hands, they'd sit down and read them carefully, trying to find out what are the Americans fielding. Then they'd do their best to develop things that is either a) better (in sence of being larger/faster/reaching further), b) more powerfull (in sence of having longer range, more power output etc.), or c) could successfully counter US or European systems in their fields.
That should be the main driving power behind their development.
Interestingly, the Russians were also working very little on tactics or finding out best ways how to deploy these systems in (potential) combat. This was what the Chinese were doing. The attache explained how once they've got two highly-qualified Chinese Su-27-pilots as guests (for a month or so at least), to work with them on some system he wouldn't go into any details about, and how these supposedly were true experts in US equipment, tactics and operational thinking. So much so, the Russians were completely surprised by sheer amount of knowledge and what kind of things these two Chinese did know (but the Russians didn't know).
So, interestingly, one does not get to hear much about Russians teaching anybody on EW/ECM-deployment, but others - especially the Chinese and the Ukrainians (or their Israeli counterparts) - doing this.
