Russian's difficulty is concentrated in two specific systems — noun cases and verb aspect — rather than spread evenly across the whole language. A good roadmap tackles them in a deliberate order instead of all at once.
Learn the 33-letter Cyrillic alphabet (see Russian Alphabet) thoroughly before vocabulary, paying particular attention to letters that look like Latin letters but sound different — this specific trap causes silent mispronunciation habits that are hard to unlearn later.
Of the six noun cases, these two cover subject and direct object, enough for real basic sentences — treat the remaining four as later additions rather than a prerequisite to speaking at all.
Learn each new verb's imperfective and perfective forms together from the start (see Russian Verbs) — retrofitting aspect onto verbs you already "know" is much harder than building it in from day one.
Add dative, genitive, instrumental, and prepositional progressively as your vocabulary and sentence complexity grow.
Cyrillic literacy: one to two weeks. Basic conversational ability with nominative/accusative-heavy sentences: several months. Comfortable command of the full case system and verb aspect: a year or more of consistent study — genuinely one of the longer timelines among commonly studied languages, and worth planning for honestly.
See also the reference page: Learn Russian.
Cyrillic literacy, done thoroughly — especially learning letters that look like Latin letters but sound different, since this specific trap causes silent mispronunciation habits that are hard to unlearn.
Nominative and accusative — they cover the subject and direct object, enough to build real basic sentences before tackling the remaining four cases.
No — learning each new verb's imperfective and perfective forms together from the start avoids having to relearn common verbs later once aspect becomes unavoidable.
Its case system and verb aspect do make the timeline longer than average among commonly studied languages — planning for a year or more of consistent study is realistic, not pessimistic.