[simonh]

Russia needs an oil price of at least $74/barrel to balance the budget, which means they've been in a lot of economic pain for the last 5 years. Roscosmos was seen as a cash cow, requiring minimal investment to make reliable $ income off their mature launch business. As a result they were starved of investment and are a pale shadow of their former selves.

Building a dynamic, innovative organisation capable of developing a re-usable architecture would be very expensive, and unless they can not just equal but handily beat SpaceX, there's just no money in it. Their current launch systems already meet their military needs, so there's no political support from that quarter either.

[bushin]

it's $42/barrel, the difference from the market price goes into their war chest

[simonh]

I'm out of date. The Moscow Time says $49, but you're quite right in that Russia has done a lot in the last few years to bring their budget under control.

Their war chest is not looking too healthy though, the hit to oil prices in the last 5 years depleted a lot of their reserves. Thanks for the correction.