> they get assigned there, steal a lot, get arrested, and new people get assigned, ...

This is just an illustration of what the state of things currently is around Russian space efforts. To change that requires changes above that in government operations.

There are still a lot of capable engineers and even managers in space industry. But being capital and material heavy, space industry can't hide from corruption, which isn't going anywhere while Kremlin is as it is today.

Soyuz spacecraft is a wonderful machine, but lately it more and more served as largely a cash cow and political facade. With Crew Dragon flying, that role diminishes. Given that Proton doesn't provide either, Russian space is left with just a few venues for development. It's hard to see bright sides there until incentives would change.

Also, the only road to the new launch facility goes through an extremely narrow Tsarist-era tunnel that severely limits rocket size.

Furthermore, fast iteration that isn't averse to failure. While they do what they can to make each test a success, they don't let it turn into a black hole of time, money, and manpower. They're willing to say, "yeah, that's good enough", test, and make the most of every aspect of the test.

Where a more traditional aerospace company would go out of their way to avoid failures at any step, SpaceX embraces them so long as nobody is endangered in the process.