First of all, it happens that, prior to learning Russian, i have learned the Ukrainian language which is about the same in structure and difficulty. Now, as far as i am concerned a huge amount of Ukrainian words, especially Russian words too, have similarities with the Latin an Greek languages, ancient of course.
Take a look at words such as телефон, or even жить, работать
телефон clearly is of greek origin,
жить sounds just like the word gîte in French, which meanings are close enough
работать reminds of the word rabot, in French, a tool to work with wood

Every in life, i find dozens of new words, either Russian or Ukrainian words which are obviously similar to their French or English equivalents, not to mention when they do sound exactly the same, like фасад/façade, for example.
Those are just examples on their own, but there are hundreds like this.
Now their are only words, and grammar is a different topic, i agree.

To be able to learn a language properly, one needs to have a serious approach towards it,helped by a teacher or not, that's a fact, but then, not only one should be interested in doing it, learning a language has to be, to me, an addictive passion of some sort, and one must whatever it takes to speak this language fluently, not to say perfectly.