The old history is dominated by autocratic regimes, which are characterized by stagnation and slow technological progress. All those examples of empires you give as success stories are actually zero growth societies where centuries have passed without any palpable technological and economic progress.
The real breakthroughs of technological development happened in democracies, aka the UK (industrial revolution) and the US (IT revolution).
XX century history shows the dominance of democracies over authoritarian regimes in terms of development and economic stability.
Science doesn't bend or calibrate itself to the political models in any particular country. Physics works the same way whether you are in the UK or North Korea.
The dome and trebuchet were typical of the Romans, did later Muslim conquerors adopt the Roman law and political model when they were trebucheting settlements in Anatolia or building domes in Baghdad? the answer is no.
The industrial revolution might come from the West, but that doesn't mean that their political model is superior. Back in the day, the Europeans would mock Asians as "monkey see monkey do" because this is exactly what many in Asia did out of awe of the Europeans in the XIX and early XX centuries. Many would even force the adoption of Western clothing and the alphabet. Japan is an exception, the Japanese did not force its people to dump the kanji and adopt the alphabet. Yet, for most of the XX century, they're the only advanced nation in Asia and their defeat in WWII is not because democracies are a superior form of government, but because the Japanese simply had a bad gamble.
The Chinese (PRC) would've not reached greatness if the Tianmen students had been successful in their attempt to bring Western-style democracy to China.
In the current world of instant communication, authoritarian regimes ae extremely vulnerable as they are unable to adapt to changes in the mood of the public, unlike democracies which are always evolving in order to suit the needs and wants of the majority.
It is true that we currently have a few bright dictators that are developing their countries at a good pace, but those are the exact dictators you dislike most (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia). But the majority of dictators are just stupid people like Putin and Xi Jinping, that drag down their countries and stop them from reaching their true potential.
There's no correlation between non-democracies and how a country adapts to challenges, basically, a government is put in charge of running the state of affairs, and they are to come up with policies that will best suit the country and the people as a tax base in tackling the challenges.
In a democracy, this is a multi-billion industry where corporations, oligarchs and big money will push for their interests to be included in those policies, even though it will harm public interests and to justify that they fool the world by portraying such exercise as "the will of the people" and the minions charged with passing their interests are termed "representatives" or in Ukraine's case " servant of the people"
No wonder our little man of democracy chose it as his movie title, did Igor Kolomoysky give him the title?
On the other hand, traditional political models often place a single sovereign in charge. This leader is typically assisted by a group of skilled advisors (statesmen). However, to prevent abuse of power, these models often have a legal framework in place, sometimes based on religious law like Sharia. This is a very efficient model of governance that led empires in the past to reach their zenith and span for hundreds of years. They don't spend billions in wealth just to pass things like the ban on smoking.
Democracy creates (most of the time) ironies. Indonesia is piss poor country where people struggle to make a living. Yet, I was shocked when I learned that we spent billions of Rupiah every 5 years so that those piss poor people could vote in ballot boxes. I'm talking about priorities here.
Ukrainians don’t want to go back to the old model of being a vassal state of Russia. They are fighting to get away fromt heir old tormentors, and with the help of the democratic world they will succeed.
There is no way Ukraine will go back to the old pro-Russian ways. Putin lost the country for good with his invasion. He miscalculated and turned a country that was very close culturally to a hardcore enemy. What Putin did is one of the biggest geopolitical blunders seen in decades.
And by invading Ukraine, he also showed Russia’s true colors to all the other satellite states like Belarus, Georgia or Kazakhstan, who will all aspire to get rid of Russia’s influence and join the democratic club of countries that help their friends instead of invading them.
I know that is why the Russian military operation commenced in the first place. They're not going to change themselves so Russia will change it for them.
Ukraine is like a spoiled brat, and a spoiled brat rarely knows what is right or wrong.
NATO is negotiating to bring nuclear weapons into combat readiness and deploy more of them in the face of the growing threat from Russia and China. This was stated by Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Putin may give an order to use tactical nuclear weapons if the Russian army is defeated in Ukraine, said Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Alexander Litvinenko
and USA 
are now in the advanced stages of securing a multi-billion deal that will see India purchase and assemble 2000 Stryker AFVs. Why is this relevant to this thread? Because the Strykers will replace 2400'ish Russian origin BMP-2s.
are also in negotiations for French made jets to start replacing India's MIGs.
rages on. Russia exports $15'ish Billion usd worth of military equipment each year. India has been Russia's 3rd-4th largest military export partner for some time.
