It’s shocking how far they’ve fallen. But they let corruption take hold of everything, gov, economy, etc., so no one in their right minds would want to invest.

They weren’t going to be the second economic power, but no reason they couldn’t have been number four behind Japan. But they could not help it, they squandered it.

Russian GDP is frequently touted as why they're overrated. However, the Russian kleptocracy believes real power is now coming from mastery of the cyberspace: disinformation, cybersecurity, offensive hacking capabilities, AI superiority[0]. This is a likely accurate understanding, and Russia has immense experience.

[0]https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-ai-putin-r...

All they can do (bar actual war) is make other countries worse. It's pretty sad, "if we can't be better than them, then we'll make them worse off than us" is a terrible strategy for the world.

Making everyone else worse... the true Balkan curse.

If we can’t work, at least we can fight.