Just a side note. WHen the US got their hands on a Mig, they sent a famous US test pilot up in one (and he was excited to fly one). He put it into one of those Mig dives we had such a hard time dealing with. ALmost no control in a dive, it was a crude missile and he had to fight to pull it out of the dive before hitting the ground. I give them credit for a strategy - they made it fast and light and apparently planned to replace the pilots as needed!
Same with their space program. I was shocked to read that during the space race, it seems they sent up astronauts and sometimes couldn’t recover them from space. The plan was to announce the existence and triumphant success of the mission only after it landed safely with surviving passengers. I read of radio operators across the world and others detecting distress calls from orbit that got fainter etc. Replace the cosmonaughts - anything to compete.
“One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” - Joseph Stalin