[jandrese]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make? Putin is corrupt and as a result his military underperforms. Historically the Russian and Soviet systems were rife with both corruption and military losses. This was my original point.

Putin may have inherited a corrupt system, but he certainly didn't do anything to rectify the problem and most likely made it worse.

He is actually very lucky that the world has been relatively peaceful during his reign, it appears an ambitious Japan could have bitten off a chunk of Russia if they wanted to and his military would have been at a disadvantage trying to stop them. Putin also got very lucky that the rest of the world didn't get involved in the invasion of Crimea, but that seems to have made him cocky and now he's tipped his hand and blown his bluff.