Russia

Never believe a word of what Putin and his ‘government’ say. I don’t think for one minute that their economy is booming. The awful attack on Ukraine is costing Russia a lot of money (not forgetting the loss of life too of course). They don’t even have a decent military force (especially their Air Force), just sadly large numbers of people being sent to their deaths in a war that they will never win. It’s high time the UN were disbanded and replaced by something that actually protects the innocent and stands in the way of oppressors.

You can't believe anything in the Russia media, they announced yesterday our king was dead!

Gillycats

Never believe a word of what Putin and his ‘government’ say. I don’t think for one minute that their economy is booming. The awful attack on Ukraine is costing Russia a lot of money (not forgetting the loss of life too of course). They don’t even have a decent military force (especially their Air Force), just sadly large numbers of people being sent to their deaths in a war that they will never win. It’s high time the UN were disbanded and replaced by something that actually protects the innocent and stands in the way of oppressors.

The economy certainly isn’t booming but they can sell whatever they wish to export but cant import much, so the population has to buy whatever is available within the country. More importantly they have abundant resources and manpower, militarily they don’t need to import anything, which if they decide to fight a prolonged war is a serious problem for NATO.
Ironically Ukraine has given Putin an excuse to militarize Russia again and get control of the population, extinguishing any liberal changes

Katie59 the Russians pose no major threat to NATO. The air power alone is far superior, and better trained, than anything Russia has to offer.

Where Russian power has proved very effective is online.

They have been one step ahead of the West in cyberwars.

Putin's aim to destabilise the West had great success in 2016 when his campaign of online disinformation and propaganda succeeded in 2016 when he managed to use an onslaught of lies on social media, aided and abetted by certain "useful idiots" in the West to manipulate the UK referendum result to achieve brexit and later that year, got Trump elected in the USA.

His "special military operation in Ukraine may not have gone according to plan but he still exerts influence in Africa and in the Middle East - to say nothing of his hold on Trump.

It’s all a farce, disgraceful and certainly not democracy in any form, strong economy or not!