Didn't Roger Stone say it is better to be notorious than anonymous? Kim Jong-il said that everyone was talking about him, so he must be doing something right

Putin 2018
Avanguard

This whole hypersonic thing is a hoax.

As is well known, the Soviets tried two approaches to competition Nikita Sergeyevich tried bluffing, but his bluff got called Leonid Illyich returned to Comrade Stalin's peer competitor strategy, but this bankrupted the country.

Vladimir Vladimirovich has returned to Comrade Khrushchev's hare brained schemes, and they are working so far, surely as long as there is a useful idiot in the White House who takes his cues from Moscow Center.

In mid-2018 Putin canned Rogozin and hire Borisov
Rogozin
Borisov

Rogozin was hardware happy, while Borisov likes disinformation [fyi, Rogozin was demoted to Roscosmos, which had a less than stellar 2019 and he is probably headed to some hydroelectric plant in the trans-Baikal as his next career move]

+ Putin is bolstering his standing with Russians
+ Putin is bolstering his standing with world opinion
+ there is little down side, since there will be no American reaction
+ there are literally dozens of analysts who are un-impressed,

but no one pays any attention to them anyway