I just assumed Russia was still communist in some way. But yes I've done a good amount of reading from this conversation as a whole.

Regarding "my work," there are countless government independent organizations that index freedom across the world, which I assume you are aware of. Nearly all (or all) of them rank Russia and China lower than "the western world." The US of course is nowhere near the top, but it's above China and Russia...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices