Russia is behind .. (Score 1)

The biggest reason Russia may be behind in some IT fields has nothing to do with the capability of the professionals in Russia and everything to do with the tariffs imposed on IT related products such as computers and other types of electronics.

In response to Putin's critics...
The best thing that happened to the non raw material dependent economy of Russia was the 1998 monetary crisis. Unfortunately, as many posters have pointed out Russia's heavy reliance upon oil and gas exports in recent years has undone much of the competitive gains made by Russian business that survived that crisis.

I'm not a huge Putin fan, but Russia did heavily invest in infrastructure such as roads and communication lines through out the country during his tenure as president.