No, I means the general economic phenomenon like "Dutch Disease" when nations become too dependent on resource revenues and how it can drive out innovation and manufacturing. The buyer nations are all to happy to build their societies on cheap energy from the short-term thinking diseased countries. Anyway, instead of Putin fixing that problem he went to war.

When I was young you had movies like "Firefox" which was concerned with Soviet advancements in aeronautics. Or the "Hunt for Red October". We can't forget Russia was the first to put a satellite into space. Anyway, back then Russia was respected, technologically, and for good reason.

Today, Russia is a joke. It can't get a module to the ISS without holes in it. All the good Russian engineers are probably working elsewhere.

Russia is no Syria, not even close. I used to believe it will break up in a loose federation but now I'm not so sure. Anyway, whatever I predict will be wrong. That's all I can say for sure ;)