You won’t a cheap holiday in Sochi, as any Russian will tell you. They prefer to go (or used to go) to Sharm el-Sheikh or Hurghada.

Russia moved past Brazil, France and Germany (!) recently in the WB PPP charts. It is also now classified as a high-income country and it overtook Portugal in terms of GDP/c. Which is funny because it is exactly what Putin promised he/Russia would achieve in ten years, back in 2003. That is, double the GDP and overtake Portugal in per capita terms (the two leading catchphrases, догнать Португалию and удвоить ВВП). :p

The IMF and CIA data commonly quoted is actually less up to date than the WB data on these things, as they use older price surveys (2005 IIRC) as the basis for their calculations whereas the current WB report is based on 2008 surveys. This winter (December), the ICP will release more up to date data for them to use so the IMF report of April 2014 will see some significant jumps. But that aside, it is now a fact that the Russian Federation is Europe’s largest economy and that their per capita figures are rapidly approaching Western levels. It is right now at 47% of the US total for instance, which is a GDP/c level that Soviet Union never came close to.

Some of the facts you have presented are misleading if not completely wrong – Russia does not have the largest economy in Europe at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Income

A block 52+ is not junk, as Fedaykin explained, it will be as modern a ground attack aircraft in the region as can be expected until, perhaps Israel take delivery of their F-35s in a few years time. I dare say the Block 52+ is just as advanced as the Saudi and Israeli F-15E variants.

Ok, but even in the air-to-air role the Typhoon still has to carry those ‘wet bags’ for a significant proportion of the interception mission. who’s to say the F-35 doesn’t have the performance advantage till then?

Mali?

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Mali—Air/Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-21bis/1807589/&sid=e5d6e8b8c597f2c475f0185c8d2c148f

Here is the few hard data we have about Typhoon:
Brakes-off to supersonic: under 30 s
Brakes-off to Mach 1.6: under 150 s (incl. climb to 36k ft)

Does figures match a fully armed Typhoon with 2 2,000 pounder bombs, a pair of missiles and a pair of external fuel tanks?

two static models?

I’ll bite (smart аrse answer).

6-й образец будет нелётным (то-ли испытания ЭПР, то-ли прочностные испытания).

“То-ли…то-ли ‘Maybe…maybe’

То-ли…то-ли implies an element of conjecture:”

Wade, Terence, A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, “The Conjunction,” pp 494.

So I think it means: “6th (airframe) example will be non-flying (perhaps either for RCS testing or for static testing)”.

Have to agree. This is by far the most promising design that ever came from China, IMHO.

And it looks like a scaled down F-22.