My guess is that Russia will fail in it pretty much off the bat. Putin isn't about progress let alone in something needing such advanced technology as a space r

My guess is that Russia will fail in it pretty much off the bat. Putin isn't about progress let alone in something needing such advanced technology as a space race. He is about stealing and feeding his own power manias. Just look at who runs his space program, it speaks for itself. He might dream about space race, but all he can do is spread space junk.