Russia is hurting itself more with their poverty, close mindedness and rampant drug and alcohol usage.
No. If we turn the discussion this way we are going more towards a political discussion. Compare the US debt in % of GDP to the debt of Russia, and then ask who is hurting themselves and with what.
You can flame Putin all you want, but if you just take a fast look at their GDP since Putin is in charge, you will see that he knows what he's doing (atleast most of the time)
Exactly.
Yes, they're obviously hurting themselves. More and more global companies are accepting Bitcoin. It's being feature in famous magazines (e.g. Economist) and whatnot. Remember, they can always remove the ban and will probably have to unless they want to lag behind US, China and EU.