Regarding "unemployment" - they've got historically low unemployment and an acute labor shortage at the moment. Also very widely reported.
Russia has lost a significant portion of their export customers and is now losing a lot of productive capacity to keep the war going.
Dragging a bunch of people out of unemployment to go die in trenches or to build IFV's that get blown up 2 weeks later makes your GDP larger but your citizens poorer.
On the military side, their ICBMs can still destroy cities. But their ability to take out a carrier strike force no longer exists at a credible level: some of the key links in the kill chain barely exist any more. They have no real expeditionary capability and can't project power much beyond their immediate borders.
> their ability to take out a carrier strike force
A Project 22350 could absolutely disable a carrier strike group:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/europe/russia-warship-hyperso...
And that's ignoring their new sub lineup, which also field Zircon's among other systems.
> Their economy is growing
As the other commenters said, that's a war economy, plus some creative bookkeeping/regulation.
> and they are integrating with several other regional players.
The past few years have shown the CSTO¹, EEU², CIS³, etc. are a joke.
> They are energy and food self-sufficient
So are Canada, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia…
> relatively large and well educated population
Aging and dying. "Demographic crisis". Same for Japan, but at least Japan's doing better in most other metrics.
> launch payloads into space on the regular
"Regular", in the sense that the launch rate collapsed by over 80% in the late 1980s, and hasn't recovered⁴, even as the US and PRC have been exploding.
> export complex things like nuclear reactors.
So do Germany, France, Canada, the Netherlands— Most advanced economies, really.
> On the military side, they are one of the only that could sink an entire carrier battle group or an entire city in a flash.
Their flagship needs a tugboat following for when it bursts into flames⁵. They've built a grand total of 36 "5th-generation" combat aircraft, which are apparently less advanced⁶ than most countries' newer 4th-gen fighters⁷. They've even used up their stockpiles of tens of thousands of ancient tanks (at least the ones that hadn't already been rusted and looted irreparably) at a rate⁸ they'll never be able to replace.
Nuclear weapons aren't hard if you have a civilian nuclear energy sector. Rockets are old tech unless you're looking at non-chemical propulsion, reusable boosters, etc. Lots of countries could do those things within a couple years if needed, but we don't because they don't usually make enough sense unless you're already a superpower in other ways⁹.
Russia does a large number of flashy things, but it's for prestige, momentum, and autarky, and they can do less and less of it each year, rather than expressing any actual economic power.
They probably could have done quite well by focusing on tech/cultural, manufacturing, and resource exports. But wealthy nations won't buy from them now they've gone mask-off with the genocidal aggression, and their civil society is too corrupt to the core to fix itself.
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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Nagorno-Karabakh_War#Ru...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union#Econom...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93Commonwealth_o...
4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1327132/payloads-launche...
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_aircraft_carrier_Admir...
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-57#Stealth
7. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/stealth-aircra...
8. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/09/russian-ta...
The economic growth measurements are by Western institutions. Considering they're cut off from SWIFT and the most sanctioned and demonized nation on earth, they're actually doing pretty well (remember, they were supposed to completely collapse like a house of cards).
> CSTO¹, EEU², CIS³, etc. are a joke
BRICs combined GDP is larger than the G7, and growing. Sans Russia and China, that's where the future population growth (and economic opportunities) are.
> Canada, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia
Brazil and Indonesia are absolutely up and coming major powers.
> Aging and dying. "Demographic crisis".
While still declining, their demographic situation has largely stabilized. It's better than the rest of Eastern Europe and even better than many Western European countries.
> "Regular", in the sense that the launch rate collapsed by over 80%
In the 1980s it was the USSR. We're talking about just Russia, a much smaller population and economy. And they launched at least 20 large payloads just last year, including a number of military sats.
> Germany, France, Canada, the Netherlands
Yes, you're making my point.
> Their flagship needs a tugboat
An old aircraft carrier is not their "flagship"; NATO ships also age out. Look into Project 22350 and Yasen class subs. Both carry Zircons and could disable a CBG.
> They've built a grand total of 36 "5th-generation" combat aircraft
If you're talking about the Su-57, it only went into serial production this year (2024) and their prototypes already have more air-to-air kills than the F-22 (via the R-37 which out ranges anything in NATO inventory).