> For Russia in particular, do we have some idea of how true this actually is? Russia lacks a lot of things, but natural resources is generally not one of them.

This isn't a game of Civ 4 where access to resources automatically grants you production.

For example, the Oktyabrsky Mine is one of the largest nickel mines in the world, yet Russia has to export that nickel abroad to be processed in order to be used in batteries or integrated circuits.

And resources are not interchangeable - oil from Dharan has an entirely different set of specs to process compared to oil from northern Alberta.

Resources aren't that rare - most countries just choose not to exploit resources because they might not be an efficient deployment of capital (why should I spend billions subsidizing a commodity product whose margins are near 0 or even negative when I can use that money to build a hospital instead)

There's a reason people get PhDs in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Geology, Mining Engineering, Physics, Geophysics, Petroleum Engineering, etc - these are very complex and specialized problems, and no country has a complete monopoly on human capital in these spaces.

Moments like this make me wish HN was shut down - it's gotten so braindead.