> Russia today is a faint ghost of the former USSR.

Russia was only a part of the USSR. Their main problem is that they, too, believe that they are the former USSR, and try to restore the former glory. Well, the state of the war in Ukraine (another part of the former USSR) clearly shows how wrong they are.

> Well, the state of the war in Ukraine (another part of the former USSR) clearly shows how wrong they are.

I assume you mean "Russia believe that they are the former USSR".

It's interesting to note that Russia in 1990-s focused on economic modernization - and while it went through highly criminal years, they built a good market economy by 1999 - while Ukraine was mostly (more) doing political reform - and they had established presidential changes. Now more economically robust Russia with autocratic ruling fights with still quite corrupt, but politically much more democratic Ukraine - and shows that, yes, it's better to be a poor democracy, than a rich autocracy, because autocracy will get you in the end... or maybe it's a too hasty conclusion.

That has little to do with the USSR as those lands were conquered by the Russian Empire in 18th century from the Ottomans.

It's smaller all right. But it is also much more robust.

Late USSR was the kind of society where most everything was in short supply and which has even failed to feed itself. Yes, it had a lot of hardware and people. All of that was for no good, given the awful system in place.

I'd point out that USSR was much more self-reliant than Russia - you couldn't really put sanctions on Eastern block of countries, they produced everything, with certain things so good they are still competitive. Yes, market economy does greatly improve Russia's agility, but special services can't stop ruin most of what they can touch, so even market economy has limited net benefits now - while at the time of USSR they had a good counterbalance in the form of the Communist Party.

You can't be self-reliant when you are bankrupt and all basic neccesities are in short supply.

USSR was defunct. Its communist party was also defunct.

Russia is lucky to have China which produces enormous assortment of items as well as trade surplus.

USSR wasn't bankrupt for many decades - until the end, of course, but it's silly to compare unstable USSR in 1991 going through destructive transformations with Russia, which still "just" losing the was against the West - so far. You should compare USSR of 1980 with Russia today (or rather before February 24 this year) - and USSR will win in capabilities, despite the lack of market economy.

> USSR was defunct. Its communist party was also defunct.

USSR was relatively stable for decades, with all its great shortcomings.

I don't think China plays significant enough role in today's events.

China produced a lot of things, but Russian market is worthless. Chinese companies left the Russian market same way western ones did.

Who would pay for Marshall Plan?

How much? E.g. in early 1992 monthly stipend of a student - something which he could somehow survive for a month (not quite, too low, but somewhat close) was about 60 roubles. And the USD-RUR course was 100 roubles for a dollar. So a person was barely - very barely - surviving on 7 dollars 20 cents a year.

Do you know how much Russian economy costed at the time?

Somebody pays eventually. We are all paying for it right now, plus interest.

Absolutely. And we will likely pay for similar situations with Hungary, Turkey, China...