For economic and resource exploitation, acting like the worst of the colonial era empires.
Otherwise I agree with your post.
IMO, the US's track record as a world power is very checkered, but I think it's way better than any of the colonial era empires. Just about all of them did things worse than what Russia is doing today (at least within their technological capabilities). The US has mostly ruled the world indirectly through economics and sometimes military threat rather than directly as the colonial powers did.
I prefer the world powers to be gentle giants who push to keep smaller powers from messing with their neighbors and strive for world harmony. The US has fallen short in that regard many times, though it has actually had that concept and tried to adhere to it at least some of the time. The concept didn't really exist until after WW I.
But that's a tangential debate that could go on for days and probably more than most people want to see here.
It apears to have received some near misses with a lot of fragmentation damage evident on the port side superstructure. The top mainmast phased area radar is missing. Whether it has been removed for repairs, removed to strip for parts, is unclear. (edit: it may have been removed for river transport to go under low bridges). I think the main gun barrel (fwd) may have been removed, but the pixellation makes it hard to be sure. Aft the machinery spaces appear to have suffered an internal fire or something - that darkening of the hull is not normal (edit : or is it, I am not sure). My guess is it is under tow fwd and aft because it is a deadship, i.e. unpowered. A lot of smaller external stuff has simply gone, perhaps stripped for use on the other vessels of this class.
According to Wikipedia it's actually a Corvette. It has 8 cruise missile tubes and has probably been responsible for launching cruise missiles at Ukraine.
Buyan-class corvette - Wikipedia
An underwater near miss might have damaged the rudder and or screws to such a point they are unusable. I'm not an expert on towing ships, but I suspect the push-pull arrangement might be because the rudder is jammed. The ship at the rear is needed to keep the ship on course.
Ships' rudders are very vulnerable to near misses exploding under the stern. It's what doomed the Akagi and almost doomed the Enterprise a few months later.
The barbell for the 100mm gun appears to still be there. It blends into the starboard railing in the more close up picture I could find. Those shrapnel holes appear to be patched with either Bondo (used as a cheap way to fill body damage on cars in the US, a Bondo-sled is a car with many Bondo patches) or the patches covered over with red primer.
Those corvettes are able to travel Russia's river system. Transferring some to the Black Sea has probably allowed them to get some more ships into the fight.
This appears to have been on the receiving end of good shooting by unguided Grad type MLRS rockets. Looking to the future the combination of longer range NATO guided MLRS (HIMARS) and Harpoon/Neptune may make the northern seas inaccessible for Russian vessels. That in turn could allow Ukraine to retake Snake Island under the cover of their own land-based artillery/missiles. Then Ukraine uses the island to base AShM and SAM systems and push the Russians even further away (both sea and air), thereby opening a sea-corridor to Romanian waters.
Bit by bit.
The reconquest could take a while.