Sadly, great philosopher's got no time for Russia's neighbours (8)
I believe the answer is:
alaskans
'time for russia's neighbours' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'sadly great philosopher's got no' is the wordplay.
'sadly' becomes 'alas' ('alas' is used to express regret).
'great philosopher' becomes 'kas' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'got' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'no' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation).
'kas' going around 'n' is 'kans'.
'alas'+'kans'='ALASKANS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for alaskans that I've seen is " Citizens of one state".)