Why Russian Weapons Are Inferior: Ukraine Reveals Reality

July 27, 2022February 4, 2026

y Russian Weapons Are Inferior is not a theory — it is a battlefield outcome. Russia’s weapons repeatedly fail in modern, large-scale combat due to systemic design flaws, lack of real testing, and a doctrine that favors quantity over precision. Ukraine’s resistance exposed these failures clearly, proving that Russian systems underperform compared to modern Western weapons in accuracy, effectiveness, and survivability.

After World War II, neither the Sovok¹ nor the Swamps² ever fought a real modern war at full strength, using their entire arsenal of “most advanced” weapons against an equal enemy. This vacuum of real combat experience gave birth to a convenient legend: Russian weapons are supposedly no worse than Western ones. Moscow itself nurtured this legend so obsessively that, at some point, it most likely stopped pretending and started believing it unconditionally. Ukraine turned that belief into a stress test — and it did not survive contact with reality.

All those bells that rang through various local conflicts weren’t perceived as a pretext to reconsider their understanding of their army’s capabilities. And most importantly — their weapons. Situations where they themselves applied their weapons in a large-scale military conflict simply didn’t exist.

The Excuses: Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Denial

All previous wars were carefully used as excuses. In Afghanistan, Russian weapons were dismissed as action against partisans rather than tested in conventional war. The First Chechen War was brushed off as internal turmoil, not a real measure of military quality. In the Second Chechen War, Pootin allowed the Orcs³ to replace strategy with sheer brutality — and that was mistaken abroad for effectiveness.

Taken together, these conflicts contributed to the illusion that the Orc army was powerful and its weapons on par with Western systems. In reality, battlefield failures were blamed on buyers’ incompetence rather than systemic flaws — until Ukraine obliterated that convenient narrative. Especially terrible tales on this topic circulated about Arab buyers: Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Egypt. In the end, precisely there russian weapons collided with Western weapons and suffered fiasco.

The Moment of Truth: Full-Scale Invasion

Earlier conflicts never tested russian weapons in a truly large-scale, modern war. Ukraine changed that instantly. The full-scale invasion forced the enemy to deploy everything at once — every branch, every unit, and every “latest” weapons system they bragged about for years. They removed all limits on destruction, erased entire cities, and launched daily missile strikes across Ukraine. After that, the question Why Russian Weapons Are Inferior stopped being theoretical and turned into an observable battlefield fact.

Why this matters: This is not just about weapons or military pride. Ukraine proved in real combat that russian military power was massively overestimated. This changes how countries assess threats, plan defense budgets, and choose alliances. The collapse of these myths also explains why russia relies on terror, destruction, and numbers instead of precision and effectiveness — because its weapons cannot deliver anything else.

And right now you can already speak about certain things quite confidently. Relying on facts against which you can’t put fairy tales, cartoons they shoot for pootin, or the Orcs’ traditional conviction that “the red army is the strongest of all”. In fact, having simply overwhelming superiority in practically any component of armed forces, but especially in the quantity of weapons, especially strike weapons, the enemy showed the clear limit of their capabilities.

These weapons immediately exposed their main hereditary disease — extremely low accuracy. ruSSia never treated this as a flaw. Their doctrine openly favors quantity over precision: produce ten crude systems instead of one accurate one. They proudly sell cheapness, primitive design, and ease of operation as “advantages”, even though modern warfare punishes exactly these traits first.

The Philosophy Behind Failure

Thereby they justified their claims about the reliability of their hardware. And if Western equipment regularly got serviced in special conditions by regular specialists, the Orcs believed that Ivan can do everything himself with a hammer or crowbar. Then operate the hardware further. All this was justified by the fact that while the enemy fusses with one expensive tank, their dozen simpler tanks will somehow smash it. And most importantly, personnel losses won’t become a catastrophe, since simple-to-operate equipment doesn’t require lengthy personnel training. In essence, this is a completely different philosophy of both weapons and war in general.

In Ukraine, russian weapons met an army that extracts the absolute maximum from comparable systems. Ukrainian forces immediately proved they operate identical platforms far more effectively. Once Western weapons entered the battlefield, the gap exploded. Western anti-tank systems destroyed every russian tank model, including the latest T-90s with their “advanced” dynamic protection. Losses of armored vehicles reached massive scales, new tanks ran out inside the invasion force, and replacements had to arrive from across the country.

When Western howitzers and HIMARS joined the fight, the difference turned bottomless. The enemy still has nothing to counter this — and Ukraine now demonstrates Why Russian Weapons Are Inferior to the entire world in real time.

The Western Weapons Advantage: Facts Over Propaganda

Simply put, the enemy has no means of fighting such weapons precisely for those very reasons he presented as a subject of pride. He has no high-precision weapons. Work by area immediately fails as soon as long-range and high-precision artillery opposes it. Moreover, the whole world discusses a simply surrealistic picture. Pootin’s army gives it their all, but a dozen HIMARS and several dozen Western self-propelled guns and howitzers arranged a nightmare on elm street for them.

Thereby, the Armed Forces of Ukraine right now show complete and unconditional superiority of Western-made weapons. That’s it, the fairy tales are over. Now everyone understands that the principle “yes, this is shit, but there’s a lot of it” doesn’t work even in opposition to a small amount of modern Western weapons.

And now we observe a parade of refusals to purchase weapons on the Swamps. Potential buyers received a direct and objective answer to the question of why Russian weapons are inferior and showed themselves so poorly among Arabs, for example, or Indians in their confrontation with Pakistan. On the other hand, Western weapons manufacturers now only manage to receive orders for those weapons systems that the Armed Forces of Ukraine showed in real combat.

Demand grew for everything — from portable anti-tank complexes to HIMARS. By the way, HIMARS aren’t some completely new weapons system. But the Baltic states already ordered them. Poland also ordered 50 units of just this equipment. Orders for tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, small arms, and of course, air defense rained on manufacturers. What moscow advertised throughout the world showed its insolvency. And the Armed Forces of Ukraine now not only degrade Orc hardware but make the best advertisement for Western weapons.

Ukrainian Hands: Maximum Potential

And as stated above, our forces managed to squeeze from even soviet weapons as much as no one expected. And now — each weapon sample in our military’s hands reveals its full potential. The military of those countries where it’s produced didn’t expect this from it. Possibly, manufacturers also learned much new for themselves. So Ukrainians and weapons are something interconnected and inseparable. Weapons in our hands show transcendent miracles.

In connection with this, a thought comes that we need to radically revise the weapons law. Automatic weapons should automatically be legal. But why shouldn’t those who know how to use it have a hand-held anti-tank complex at home? In case of anything, combat readiness will be within an hour. And regarding trophy weapons, clarity should be introduced altogether.

Today the press tells about how residents of Poltava Oblast had 11 trophy tanks confiscated. Why? If a person managed to trophy it, it means he knows how to use it. Surely he already repaired it, lubricated it, replaced something there. If a person has a military ID and driver’s license, why shouldn’t he have a tank at hand? Especially when the country shares a common border with such a fucked-up neighbor. The question of why Russian weapons are inferior has been answered definitively by Ukraine’s warriors — and the world is taking notes.

Myths vs Reality about Russian Weapons

Years of propaganda turned russian weapons into a collection of comfortable myths. Ukraine did not argue with them — it tested them in real war. What follows is a simple comparison between what was claimed and what actually happened.

Myth: Russian weapons perform as well as Western ones on the battlefield.
Reality: Repeated combat evidence in Ukraine shows russian systems fail in accuracy, range, and integration — not because of lack of use, but because they were not designed for modern combat.

Myth: Past conflicts proved russian military effectiveness.
Reality: Afghanistan, Chechnya, and similar engagements were never full-scale tests against a peer enemy; those so-called victories fueled myth, not performance.

Myth: Russian weapons performed poorly in Syria and Iraq only because they were used by untrained or unprofessional forces.
Reality: Then who exactly invaded Ukraine — amateurs or professionals? The difference is simple: in Ukraine, russian weapons faced a real, organized military instead of defenseless targets.

Myth: Russian weapons are reliable because they are simple.
Reality: Simplicity does not compensate for unreliable engines. Russian vehicles suffer from chronic engine failures — and engines are not just for movement. Tanks need them to rotate turrets, self-propelled artillery needs them to elevate guns, and when engines fail, the entire system turns into a static target.

Myth: Quantity can replace quality in modern war.
Reality: Ukraine demonstrated the opposite in real combat. Mass without precision burns resources, exposes crews, and accelerates losses. That is why russian forces rely on terror and destruction instead of accuracy — not by choice, but by limitation.

¹Sovok – sarcastic abbreviation for “Soviet Union,” derived from “Sovetskiy Soyuz”. The word also means “dustpan,” carrying a double connotation of trashiness and backwardness.

²Swamps – an ironic name for Russia, emphasizing decay, stagnation, and filth. The Commander of the USF, Robert Browdie, and most soldiers use this word.

³Orcs – a common term for Russians who support or participate in the armed aggression against Ukraine. Dehumanizing? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.