Russia will still have nukes in 20 years. That's the dilemma..
Those nukes are no good if the sites are manned by corrupt drunken officers and mentally and physically ill conscripts.
This statement in the article is the main illness they suffer from and affects all aspects of their life:
"So, Russia is a country where hundreds of thousands of women are desperate to get out at any price, large numbers of other women and orphans are sold abroad, where its army cannot staff itself except with drunken drug-taking smokers (those who survive to conscription age that is) and which is dependent on immigrants from countries that the people regard with contempt, and as enemies, just to survive. This is what Putin's State of the Nation message tells me. "
Russian women don't want to have children, especially boys, when they're fed to the military like slabs of meat when they turn 18. If they don't get their armed forces converted into a real professional army (and not the "experiment" [failed] contract basis) they'll collapse even further.
I'll repeat this until I'm blue in the face - Putin is NOT the all powerful autocrat that he is depicted in the Western press. He has no real control over the Army and, in my opinion, will not gain control over them until he fires his best friend (Sergej Ivanov) and a whole generation of generals.
Nobody in the US that understands how the world works would be cheering this horrible state of affairs in Russia - it affects us all. Nation-states are their most unpredictable when they are weak. We need a strong, vibrant, and confident Russia (for our own selfish reasons). A Russia that is sure of herself would NOT recognize HAMAS, fool around with the Iranians, and play footsies with the Chinese.