A country doesn't need a 1st amendment to build missiles. See North Korea. Russia is far more advanced than North Korea in technology.

The washing machine chip story was not true.

Again, Russia has its own chip facilities. No doubt they lag the West, but again, they can lag 2 or 3 generations of our technology and still work well enough.

We are already seeing the Russian supply chain in action. They continue to build tanks and missiles in their own factories much closer to Ukraine than ours. These are weapons of their own design on which Russian troops are well-trained.

This is why Obama rightly said we should avoid a conflict in Ukraine, as Russia would always have an escalatory advantage over us.