[abixb]

Thanks, good one. The current Russian economy is a shell of its former self. Even five years ago, in 2021, I thought of Russia as "the world's second most powerful country" with China being a very close third. Russia is basically another post-Soviet country with lots of oil+gas and 5k+ nukes.

[krior]

> another post-Soviet country

Other post-Soviet countries fare substantially better than Russia (Looking at GDP per capita, Russia is about 2500 dollars behind the economic motor of the EU - Bulgaria.)

[rvnx]

Must be a misunderstanding

1) Post-soviet countries are doing amazingly well (Poland, Baltics, etc) and very fast growing + healthy (low criminality, etc)

2) The "Russia is weak" thing; it is vastly exaggerated because it is 4 years that we hear that "Russia is on the verge of collapse" but they still manage to handle a very high intensity war against the whole West almost alone.

3) China is not a country lagging behind others at all. It is said in some schoolbooks but it is a big lie that is 0% true now.