[annalex]

Useful picture:

Military budget of Russian Federation and of other post-USSR countries

Hint: $71 billion, -- guess who? $10 billion is cumulative budget of all ex-USSR countries except the RF.
The red bar is number of active servicemen. 1 million -- guess who?
The dotted line is the cumulative of all ex-USSR countries except the RF, against the RF.

(Courtesy Sputnik i Pogrom)

In East Europe the Cold War never ended.

[lodi90]

That’s the wrong chart. You need one with market size. The banksters in London and Frankfurt are willing to feed Ukraine and the Baltics to the Russian bear to keep their cut of the Russian kleptocracy coming in. That’s what pays for their ferraris and high priced hookers. So what if millions are put back in Russian chains, they simply don’t care.