Gee, how many of them can they afford to buy for such a huge country that spans 11 time zones? Plus the fact that their GDP is the size of Italy and their military budget is 10% of ours at about $60 billion ? Maybe the cost of their equipment is a mere 10% of ours and each of those huge missiles cost $75,000 a pop like our Javelin anti-tank missile?
“Gee, how many of them can they afford to buy for such a huge country that spans 11 time zones? Plus the fact that their GDP is the size of Italy and their military budget is 10% of ours at about $60 billion ? Maybe the cost of their equipment is a mere 10% of ours and each of those huge missiles cost $75,000 a pop like our Javelin anti-tank missile?”
That’s an interesting point. Russia has so many economic and cultural problems you’d think they’d be spending money on those. I recently read forty percent of Russians are actively thinking about emigrating to other countries. Their non-Muslim population is collapsing with the second lowest birth rate in Europe. Their economy is in disarray due to Putin’s war adventures and the resulting sanctions. But, still, they are continually spending money on systems they can’t afford to produce, like their latest tanks and stealth aircraft, for examples.
Unfortunately, the culture is on auto-pilot with nobody looking after it. They are still paranoid...and I’m not saying they aren’t right to be so. Putin has them working on everything except, apparently, solutions to problems that will destroy the country in just thirty to fifty years. Of course, Putin will be long gone when those bills come due.