Dont write off the Soviets so quickly, in certain areas they were and in some cases still are more advanced than the west.
They remain the only country ever to serially produce a large military submarine not once but twice with two other experimental boats.
Project 705 Lira (7 built) NATO Code name Alfa initially rated to 900 meters, later on cracks were found in the hull which meant they were restricted to 450 meters, these submarines could sustain 42 knots with a burst speed of 45 knots for a short period, their main draw back was their 5 bladed screw and they made more noise than a Metallica concert.
The next type of titanium submarine was the Project 945 & 945A class (2 Barracuda and 2 Kondor class or NATO code name Sierra I & II) they look similar to the Project 971 Akula's but are much heavier their weapons are the same similar speed profiles and acoustic dampening and here is the difference while the steel hull of the Akula allows for diving to around 550 meters the Titanium hull of the sierra's allow it to go much deeper 850 meters.
How strong is that hull? why not ask the 1992 crew of the K-276 Kastroma, while submerged the Kastroma collided with the Los Angeles class submarine USS Baton Rouge SSN 689 the damage to the Baton rouge was deemed so severe the vessel was deemed uneconomical to repair and scrapped, the Kastroma suffered Minor damage to her sail and now wears a kill star.
Other titanium boats include the lone Project 661 Anchar whc=ich holds the worlds fastest sustained under water speed record at 44.7 knots this is her back end just prior to her scrapping.
And probably the most famous yet ill fated the Lone Project 685 Plavnik or NATO Code named Mike class, which still holds the world record for deepest diving military submarine at 1020 meters, in 1989 she would catch fire in the Norwegian sea and sink with the loss of 42 of her crew.
Before you say it the USN has the seawolf class SSN yes i know it can dive to over 600 meters, however she isn't made of titanium she is made of HY130 steel unlike the 688's, Virginia' Trafalgar Swifsures and Astutes which are made of HY80 steel
What about weapons then? well as above the Russians have the only working and usable rocket powered torpedo proving the technology is Workable, the initial launch in 1977 shows that they were somewhat ahead for their time whats more the torpedo was updated in the mid 90's
Want to know another thing that is used to this day by of all people NASA ?
The NK33 rocket engines and variants of it used a closed system saving alot of fuel plus giving more power in a smaller motor, created in the 1960's ! it was deemed by NASA after a very large expenditure that the system was un workable and unsafe.
Variants of that NK33 engine now power the Atlas and Antares rockets they have also powered a lot of other ones too, it is also likely that a variant will be used in the Ariane 6 rocket for the ESA.
This particular engine group is also fitted to nearly every single type of ballistic missile in the Russian arsenal, whats more variants power the vintage 1957 designed R7 Semyorka rocket which even to this day is used not only by the Russian's but also but crews heading to the ISS Since 2011 when the shuttle programme ended in the USA this old girl plus her vostok capsule also of 50's vintage is currently the only way to the ISS from Baikanor Kazakhstan
Also it is worth while to note this last piece il give you, in 1999 over Sarajevo the F117A Night hawk stealth jet was shot down by a ground based SAM system called S-125 Neva / Prechora which was a derivative of the SA-2 Guidline that in 1962 took down Garry Powers U2 in Russia and Rudolf Andersons U2 in Cuba, a vintage missile system.
Brace yourself for the following picture.......
Chernobyl 2017 by
Blair shaw, on Flickr
This is myself standing in front of one of the largest over the horizon radar arrays, this array is located near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant the array dubbed Chernobyl 2 was able to send a signal around the earth, much to the annoyance of every ham radio operator in western Europe, this array code named steel yard proved that radio waves could bounce around the ionosphere and stratosphere which led the way to the Phased array radars we see today at places like RAF Flying Dales in Yorkshire, again the Russians proved it could work it was improved upon massively by the west specifically the USA and developed greatly and today you have systems such as Aegis and Sampson because of this development.