Russia's military budget is now five times less than China and ten times less than the USA. Russia controlled eastern Europe as the USSR. They were a superpower for decades despite the economic power of the USSR being half of the USA. The USSR spent far more of its economy on its military and built high volumes of tanks, planes and nuclear weapons.

Russias economy and military budget are becoming smaller and smaller relative to the USA and China. The Russian military budget is about $60 billion and only $30 billion on buying weapons aka procurement. China spends about $200-300 billion on its military and the USA spends $750 billion. China and the USA are growing their economies and military budgets. Russia is being forced to choose between being militarily weak and irrelevant or gambling on making crazy nuclear superweapon systems. Putin has already chosen to go down the make crazy nuclear superweapons path.