MOSCOW — Ask a Russian what the country makes well, and the answer, more often than not, will be the Kalashnikov rifle.
Russian-made cars may be rickety, and its passenger airplanes such fuel-guzzlers that even the country’s flag carrier, Aeroflot, has switched to a mostly Western fleet. But Russians could always point with pride to the fearsome reputation of their weapons — the Kalashnikov and the MIG and Sukhoi fighter jets.
Indeed, until recently, Russia’s military exports were second in volume only to the United States.
But in today’s Russia, the $40 billion military equipment industry is withering alongside civilian manufacturing.
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I just had a vision of Russians rattling sabres which had ‘made in PRC’ on the hilt…