I'd like to tag on an additional question to this if that's ok.

Typically, weapons development during the cold war seemed like a constant game of one upping the other guy.

Why wasn't there a similar stealth aircraft developed by the Soviets in response to the F117?

According to a declassified CIA memo , the Soviets got a lot of their information on US stealth from open source journalism, especially International Defense Review's Bill Sweetman, which the CIA calculated was cited in approximately 40% of Soviet publications on stealth. While the memo doesn't go into specifics and is redacted in parts, they note that open source reporting from trade journals got the contours of the US stealth programs correct and the Soviets appreciated that this was a far more reliable source than the New York Times. Although it might seem like a poor intelligence source, open-source articles in trade journals often featured informed educated guesswork, such as the type of engine used or the internal weapons' bay.