I agree this is propaganda, and it is dangerous. Despite the fact that bad roads and decaying villages are very real in Russia, Russia has tremendous oil and gas wealth, and the medium and long-term economic trends for Russia are upward.

Russia has many symptoms of an industrial nation turning into a resource-extraction oligopoly, but it would be a very risky mistake to think Russia headed toward collapse. Russia may have many problems, but it will be a strong and rich nation. Allowing that fact to surprise us will lead to bad policy decisions.