I’m not sure what is most pathetic - that a nation would attempt such a laughable project or that a magazine entitled “MIT Technology Review” would bother to cover it(???)
MIT Technology Review is not peer reviewed and does not pretend to be, but it is generally good (if a bit speculative on occasion). The choice surprised me as well. Many of the technical issues mentioned are manageable, even lifting to one kilometer, if it is done in stages, which is not mentioned in the article but is a reasonable accommodation. If they have booster pumps every twenty, fifty, or one hundred feet, the pressures are much more plausible. Of course there is the pump weight issue, but they can afford a grand new DARPA project in a good cause. Perhaps MHD pumps powered by solar panels on the balloon would suffice