I think the USA is still further ahead than Russia. However, both are way further behind compared to countries like Japan (as was previously stated in the thread).
I wouldn't say so, I believe Putin recently meet with Vitalik and it seemed to work pretty well, we could see good things coming out of this. Nationality definitely helped in that case. As for the US, with all the regulations in place, the SEC and the trouble citizens have to legally get into ICOs it will be a much harder battle to win.