The shuttle had a lot of capability. It's the only thing that's been able to put up a crew along with a heavy payload. To match it Russian style, you'd need a heavy lifter and several rendevous with crews, but then there would still be no shuttle bay. Manned space flight is dead without the shuttle, well, except for the ISS, I guess. We'll see how long that lasts.
True, but the big problem the shuttles had was the lack of a launch abort system, which doomed the Challenger crew.
That would not have saved the Columbia crew of course, but then the four Russians lost in flight were also killed as a result of reentry accidents.
And let’s not forget that the Russians tried to build their own shuttle once, but ran out of money and gave up on the project.