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Is it possible to get a copy of a root server’s info somehow without doing a recursive lookup on every TLD?

The root server only has tlds. In this case there are only 3 relavent lookups to do (.ru, .su and .рф)

AXFR global DNS zone transfer

Usually blocked at the top level root server.

However there have been incidents where such servers are misconfigured and allow it.

AXFR work totally fine on some root servers. Try b.root-servers.net.