Russia and China are almost on a par with American technology, but China is still replacing old stuff, whist Russia has got rid of it by now.
China is hungry for minerals and fuel to feed its growing industry. It psychology needs an ally since it is still spooked by the horrors of World War 2.
Russia needs a market to sell stuff to due to trade sanctions by the West as well as a source of cheap labour and near infinite cannon fodder if it comes to the worst over in the Ukraine. Russia is apparently using China and the Chinese have not twigged it yet!
President Putin has used World War 2 like Adolph Hitler used World War 1 in the 1930s to create a growingly racist, nationalistic, expansionist and warmongering personality cult.
Most ethnic Russians in the former have also become fascinated, neo-fascinated, quasi-fascinated, krypto-fascinated, uber-fascinated and re-fascinated with the former Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin.
Presidents Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov/Türkmenbaşy (also spelled Turkmenbashi) of Turkmenistan, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus seemed to spook him until recently. China has now forced Kazakhstan to back off at times and Türkmenbaşy is now dead.
The Latin American connection is purely criminal and kleptocratic. Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela are all, as far as business and trade go, morally dubious at the best of time. Whilst Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela are America-phobic, like Russia; they also share the criminal element that is akin to the Russian culture of kickbacks and corruption. Argentina is both economically corrupted and also expansionist. They are against the British held Falklands and some Chilean islands in Terre De Fuego. Brazil is apparently just a big economically corrupted, bribe infested, sports related kickback creation club!
Zimbabwe and Iran are the strange ones, I don't get why they love Russia so much.
