> At this point the old name is the only thing still missing.

And about 14 countries.

More like 11 and a half by now. Or actually 10 and three quarters, depending on how you count. They are tirelessly working on bringing that number down.

You really think they'll stop after 14? Because I do not.

As is the geopolitical relevance and power.

More like the rest of the world woke up to the fact that their military is a corrupt disorderly mess. Russia hasn't fought a powerful military since WW2 and even then they barely came out on top with massive loss of life.

An even superficial ideological orientation toward Marxism-Leninism is also missing.

We’d be living in a different world if Trotsky had succeeded Lenin.

How so? I understand you are talking about Ukrainian and Georgian wars, but even them are hardly an attempt to return to SU days.

I'm not even talking about very limited influence over other ex-USSR republics. It is there but very limited.

It's not just that. Putin and his gang are actively pushing what is now referred to as neo-sovietism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Sovietism

There's no Neo-Sovietism but Duginism. It's a like an even more hardcore version of the Spanish Francoism but a la Slavic way.

They hate science and praise the Orthodox ideology with high statism. And without a country-loving science China it's just getting a luxury present for free themselves.

They will progress like crazy with very little efforth and they could buy Russian assets for scraps.

Yes, but again - this more about their afforts to appeal to a certain part of domestic popularion rather than a fair attempt of rebuilding USSR.

It's more about "ice cream for 47 kopecks" rathan then anything else.

> this more about their afforts to appeal to a certain part of domestic popularion

And yet, more than a million Russian lives alone were sacrificed to make the appeal reality.

Russia, like it or not, is actively busy restoring its older glorious days and unfortunately there is no sign of them coming anywhere near to a point where they can't sustain their losses any more. They're permanently losing upwards of 1000 soldiers per day, and that's not counting the injured, only deaths.

>And yet, more than a million Russian lives alone

As long as we are talking the current war https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c5yqkrz2xw1o Russia has 200k+ confirmed (via various sources like obituary, media posts etc) KIA. Even if we count MIA and add something on top - this is way less than mythical "million".

>They're permanently losing upwards of 1000 soldiers per day, and that's not counting the injured, only deaths.

Again - bullshit.

Also see CSIS analysis with numbers: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine

>permanently losing

Just to be clear: "permanently losing" typically means soldiers who are unable to fight. Not killed ones.

People who lose a limb, for example, are considerent a "permanent loss".

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2026/0... as an example: "recoverable losses—i.e., those who will never return to the battlefield"

You're missing Moldova as well.

And yes, Russia keeps invading, hacking, politically pressuring and organising disinformation campaigns to make these ex-USSR countries fall back into Russia's bloody wing.

Sure, but so far this has nothing to do with bringing USSR back.

Yup, just a coincidence.

I'm just saying that

>fall back into Russia's bloody wing.

does not equal recreating USSR.