Russia - threadbanned users in OP

If you want to play that game, they didn't put the first man on the moon or acquire operational nuclear weapons first.

Perhaps floating nuclear power plants is a stupid idea.

Where's Silicon Valley?

You got too giddy with your cheerleading and jumped too high, now we've all seen what's under your skirt !!!!

But there is also wall to wall coverage of it, it's the big bad old Russian bear and that Zelenskiy lad is on TV all the time. Should get the year out of it. You could bet on the GOP doing that anyway but they have agreed to back the military expenditure and will probably continue to do so. Photo ops in Kiev doth make heroes of people! It's only the likes of the good congresswoman from "Joegia" who are expressing contrary opinions.

That nation was the Soviet Union (+ all of its satellites), not Russia.

Putin's Russia is I think much reduced from those days as regards technological and scientific abilities and manufacturing capacity.

They have struggled with "revamping" their military with new technology or even maintaining everything the Soviets left them and weapons is one of the few manufactured goods Russia exports alot of and is an expert in.

Stuff that's useful for humanity and not a f-cking crime and a waste like weapons (e.g. Covid-19 vaccines say) - not so much. Did you get your dose of "Sputnik"?

Instead, during the pandemic, Russia tried to drag others who are just plain better than them down to their level by spreading lies, bolloxology and conspiracy theories around the world through the internet and their state media.

The only hope Russia has over time is Sugar Daddy Xi coming through for them in a big way as a provider of technology and manufacturing capacity to back-fill things they can't get from the West any more (which he may yet decide to do I suppose, but he won't do it for nothing that's for sure). On their own, if the sanctions stay and hopefully get tightened up I don't think they have a chance (+ they will be on a spiral downwards from where they are now)!

In relation to Zens hyper missile talk, the US is an honest and open country so when stuff goes wrong they do not cover it up. Russia covers up everything only to get caught out from time to time. When that nuclear-power forever circulating missile thing fell from the sky last year was recovered and blew up in port what did Russia do...! yeep hushed it up and turned off all the atomic readers and sensors.

I will say nothing about the Kursk, lets's face it, if Russia could have covered that up they would have.

I am much happier with an open and frank government admitting when things go wrong.

China and Russia... NO THANK YOU.

At Sloviansk direction Russian army shelled Krasnopillia, Pervomaiske, Nova Mykolaivka, Bohorodychne, Adamivka, Dolyna, Mazanka, Dibrivne, Chepil and Mospanove. Ukrainian military repelled attack at Dolyna village, - General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine says in the morning report

the next big city is Sloviansk!

A new law is about to be passed in Russia making it compulsory for workers to do unpaid overtime to help the war effort

I guess that's a side effect of a booming economy (not)

Lol. At first it was "USSR was a pioneer in the space race, you think they can't make a washing machine".

Suddenly it's "The EU is still buying Russia fuel and lads here are worried about if Russia can make a washing machine".

No-one gives a toss what Russia can or can't make, they're just correctly pointing out that Russia is in a rather serious spot of bother with lack of access to essential western tech and will, in fact, be unable to produce a lot of modern technology, military or civilian, low end and high end.

"Russia can, for various reasons including cultural/societal, bear the sanctions well enough and the west is hurting more relatively speaking" is an opinion I can accept.

"Russia is a technological leader and more advanced than the west in many ways" is utter Hitler Bunker April 1945 level delusion.