What really makes me wonder is how much of whatever Russia's equivalent is to DRRS-N reports and ROC/POE documents have been being gundecked since the end of the Soviet era, or at least since shortly after Putin took over. I mean, there's a reason the whole idea of a "Potemkin village" got its name from Catherine the Great's boo trying to impress her with what was ultimately fake bullshit. We have all of these supposed advances over the years, even going back further than T-14 tanks and Su-57s. How much of that was just window-dressing over the lion's share of the "modernization" budget getting embezzled by Putin's cronies and turned into some really baller luxury yachts?
I'm reminded of the ultimate result of the WMD fiasco in Iraq. We thought Iraq had WMD because Saddam thought he had WMD. And Saddam thought he had WMD because he basically told his scientists he'd kill them if they didn't get him some WMD. And no one in his inner circle was stupid enough to commit suicide by telling him that the Emperor was prancing around nekkid. Comrade Putin wanted to modernize his military . . . what's to say his people weren't also bullshitting him all along?
