How long would it take me to learn some Russian?

Hello! :D

I'm posting outside my country, hoping to receive some "broader insight".

I am obsessed with foreign languages.

I'm a native Italian speaker, and I've been studying English for a very long time, now.

I have also studied French for four years, when I was little, and even if I forgot most of its grammar, I can still understand a good 80% of a French text, and even somewhat speak it. In my high school we had compulsory Latin and Ancient Greek classes, for nine hours a week, for all the five years (high-school lasts 5 years, here).

So, I'm already used to cases (nominative, dative, and so on), and different alphabets. Add to the picture that I've been studying Japanese for almost 6 years now (university + self-study), and I'm an intermediate speaker. I can also read it, write it and recognize around 1500/2000 kanji.

But, somehow, I feel that I need a little daily break from Romance and Asian languages, so I was wondering if it would be wise for me to pick up a Slavic one, and see how it goes.

Obviously, Russian popped into my mind as a first choice, and I've been digging around a bit to find some basic audio lessons, and I loved the few words I've learned.

So, here are my questions:

1) Given my previous background, how long would it take me to learn some basic/lower intermediate Russian, considering that I could theoretically study it only 30/60 minutes a day?

2) If any of you has some experience with Latin, are cases in Russian used differently than in Latin? Any other difficulties you encountered? Pronounciation, peculiarities in grammar/sentence structure?

3) Do you think learning Russian is a good choice? I'm doing it just for fun and self-culture, but it would be great if Russian could be a "bridge" towards other languages, in the future.

4) Any tip/good resources? Of course, I realize that having a teacher around would be the best choice, but I don't know if I can afford/find one who could fit lessons in my busy schedule.

Thank you for your time, and sorry for any eventual mistake.