Russia may have been week in 2022. Not now. Once Putin realised that the Minsk Accords were dead, and there was no chance of actually signing the Istanbul peace agreement, he put Russia on a war footing.

Everyone talks about what an aitocrat Putin is. Yet no one wants to realise what an autocrat can do to literally transform the econo9my of a countryl, turning it into a "war economy" overnight.

Putin ramped up all the production capacity from the Cold War, took the factories out of mothballs, and directed that they start working 24/7 to produce shells, ammo, tanks, missiles, bombs and so on. They chave been churning away 24/7 on a war footing for the past 2 years.

The result is that Putin is well on his way to having his desired 1.5 million man army, the Russian armed forces are swimming in ammunition, artillery shells, bombs, and above all - MEN - something Ukraine no longer has.

Russia is now the strongest armed force on the planet, probably even stronger (though not as large) as the PLA. This is a fact,Max. It is what happens when an autocratic leader rallies his people and the nation to a prepare and engage in a war as an entire society, when he has all the riches and wealth of the country at his disposal because sanctions have made it impossible for Russian wealth to leave the country, when people are fed a diet of nationalistic, patriotic news and entertainment, and the country itself is 100% autonomous in terms of production capacity, raw materials and energy.