How to get past 1500s as Russia

I have many attempts as Muscovy to form Russia and only succeded once and was #1 great power in the late 1600s, this happened only because I wasn't usually attacked in the 1400s and 1500s by a 100k ottoman army or the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. So my question is, how can I form Russia without getting attacked early game by the two previous nations, and is there a way to ally the Ottos in the 14-1500s.\

## I found a lot of the comments helpful and some said the same as others. One of the main things I heard was having a big army, while i do agree this is very helpful I find it difficult to field a 50k plus army before the mid 1550s due to my economy. thanks for the adivce and keep it coming.