OT Russia has been described as a third world nation with a first world military-industrial complex. During the 90's when the empire fell apart their birth rate and life expectancy actually dropped and it wasn't that high to begin with.
During that time I worked with some of their refugee scientists. Fun people in a gloomy slavic sort of way. What they were fleeing was......hand tool farm work. The state stopped paying them much and the best minds in the old USSR were too busy growing vegetables in gardens to get any work done.
I don't know how things are going now, I assume things have picked up a little but they have generations to go before they are up to European/US standards. The Yukos-Russian government conflict is a game of chicken. They have to export oil to keep going whether Yukos is in the game or not, the oil will keep flowing.
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