First of all, Russia is not some huge economic engine. Their entire national economy is equated to be about the size of California's. And, it has been a few years—but California's economy, if it was a nation, was once estimated would make it the sixth strongest in the world.
Internationally the Russian economy is estimated to be the 11th largest in the world, which makes it about one tenth of size of the American economy.
Russia is estimated to be spending around $62B annually on their military and the United States is spending $778B on ours.
The economy and economic welfare of Russia is built on natural gas and oil exports. Much like Saudi Arabia, that is the basis for what wealth they have.
We see videoes almost every night on national news of Russian tanks and soldiers on maneuvers. War fighting exercises are expensive. Even when gasoline was .25 cents a gallon in 1973, it cost a million dollars a day to keep an armored division out on maneuvers. The videos we are seeing again and again are training videos—shot previously when tanks and others were training. Today, all those armored vehicles are parked in what I would call "motor pool formations." There has to be some personnel dedicated to their maintenance, but the majority of the soldiers are likely elsewhere.
When you see these parking areas vacated and vehicles moving forward to assembly areas then you know things "are about to begin."
If you took California's economy and dedicated $62B to a military force, it would cause a serious drain on the finances of the state. Something has to give when you shell out that much money for people, equipment and operational readiness.
But, as I wrote previously, dictators are a highly unpredictable lot. How much can you trust Putin to live up to his agreements?—not much.
The one thing I do know is he likes all the attention he is getting!
