Russian wages are MUCH lower than they are in Canada or South Korea. Average salary is something like ~500 USD per month, while in Canada it is closer to 5000 U

Russian wages are MUCH lower than they are in Canada or South Korea. Average salary is something like ~500 USD per month, while in Canada it is closer to 5000 USD, so it is a way cheaper to operate nukes and send troops everywhere for Russia. And if you think that nuclear engineers are making significantly more than an average Ivan, then I have a bad news for you, that's unlikely. For example, a friend of mine works for a subcontractor of Roscosmos (Russian space activities corporation, basically russian "NASA") as an electronic measurements instrumentation engineer and makes 60000 rubles per month before taxes (roughly 850$ per month). That's a joke of a salary and he is only able to work there because he is owning a property in Moscow.