My dear friend,
you was able to notice our GDP numbers but somehow did not take a peek at the GDP per capita list. Russia is lower than
-Greece
-Lithuania
-Estonia
-Slovakia
-Czech republic
and on the same level with Poland.
I wonder if it is what you mean under "better condition"?
Now, those countries had no gift in such amount of natural resources as Russia, but were able to achieve the same level of prosperity as we did. Moreover, many experts recently claimed that these countries (like Poland and Czech rep.) were predicted to overtake Russia in the current year (even when Russia still was
stable!). Oil pumping (in Russia as well as in Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, Indonezia) cannot eternally develop countries economy - we lost to eastern states due to their less corruption and higher management efficient).
Furthermore, take into account that half of our $ 400 b budget used to be incomes from oil \ gas exports. Taxes from businesses - much less than in western countries. 50% of USA`s GDP are incomes from lower companies. In Russia - nothing like this. Simply because companies don`t pay legit taxes. Or simply because companies (in such amount) do not exist. Which do - they are mostly retail shops or services, because it is extremely unreasonable to produce anything in Russia. Money are expensive, energy is expensive, inflation is high, property safety is low.
You have got different opinion like "you have got pretty strong industry" - maybe you could name what useful apart from raw materials do we sell? Russian vehicles? Software? Electronics? Food? Anything. You can even use a list of 200 largest private companies.
200 крупнейших частных компаний trying to find anything notable except retail and oil\gas.
I begin to have doubts about your competence, since I have to explain such obvious things.
Concerning NATO - actually, don`t even want to discuss this. Remember, that Georgia never attacked Russia or any other country. Russia did. No wonder that after that everyone became concerned about their safety. As well as Ukraine. So don`t tell me anything about "NATO provoked" or so. There is no point in discussing this.