Russia worst off without the USSR by Thomas Riggins

This article indicates that the decline of Russia, despite its resurgent military, is entirely due to the fall of the Soviet Union and abolishment of Soviet socialism based on central planning (which allowed Russia to rise from a semi-feudal backwards peasant country to a major industrialized world power) and its replacement by a capitalist economic system manipulated by oligarchs. The NYT, of course, doesn't put it quite that way, but it's there if you read between the lines (it's the unconscious subtext).

Russia’s Villages, and Their Way of Life, Are ‘Melting Away’

Contrary to President Vladimir V. Putin’s claims of population growth, rural areas — long considered the wellspring of Russian culture and identity — are dying.

NYTIMES.COM