I'd put more effort into this, but i have horrible shits right now. Taking a breather.
The Russians have developed a lot of extremely good tech, but they have no way to really produce it en mass. Their deals with China might be more "we'll design the stuff, you can make them." They will keep selling Soviet era equipment, keep using Soviet equipment vs neighbor country while potentially stockpiling modern equipment by dealing with China and buying NATO equipment from pro-Russia forces in neighbor country. Some estimates i've heard is that about 1/4 of NATO equipment sent to neighbor country ends up in Russia either by sale, gift or siezure.
That's an interesting thing. I kind of doubt recent new equipment will last a hypersonic hit, especially because the Russians don't need new rocket tech.
Ok done wiping
Their deals with China might be more "we'll design the stuff, you can make them."
Right, even before getting sanctioned to Iran/NK levels, they struggled fielding a modern army/air force/navy. One of the outcomes of this whole fiasco is Russia fades away in power and doesn't have enough money to rebuild a modern army or has to cut back to their expensive but largely excessive nuclear arsenal. Alternatively, China might bail them out or prop them up like NK. The Chinese are absolutely ruthless, opportunistic, and self-serving (basically like the Farengi), so they would certainly get their pound of flesh in that deal and make Russia their little bitch. They essentially become a useful club to wield or threaten against the west and keep the west distracted and as a huge buffer zone, but Russia is obviously reduced from a Great Power in such a relationship to a big mining colony. Either way, that's one hell of a price for "showing it to the West". Irrational and self-destructive behavior on Russia's part.
I kind of doubt recent new equipment will last a hypersonic hit, especially because the Russians don't need new rocket tech.
Yeah, hypersonic seems mostly like vanity projects. "Wow, we can destroy them in 15 minutes vs the 30 minutes of our existing missiles get there." Does this upset the strategic balance of power or grant significant, new military capabilities? Not really, at least not right now until you've brought the costs down and have it massively deployed. I'm sure generals in the field would take functioning supply lines, intelligence, combined arms, systems integrations, etc over hypersonic if given the choice. That sure makes for good PR though. I'm sure the MIC is dumping tons of resources into it either way, and maybe there will be important applications in 10 years.
Some estimates i've heard is that about 1/4 of NATO equipment sent to neighbor country ends up in Russia either by sale, gift or siezure.
Does that really seem plausible to you? Are there any legitimate sources or evidence backing such bold claims? Surely if something like that were happening at that scale it would be easily exposed and we'd see full trains of seized NATO gear, right? Russians would be parading the captured NATO gear around Red Square and rubbing it in our noses in front of the whole world or the UN in the same way there are captured Russian tanks sitting on expo in Warsaw and Berlin. How is Ukraine still defending itself and how is Russia advancing so slowly (or withdrawing in other areas) if there is such corruption and low morale at this scale? Or wait, other similar "rumors" I've seen said NATO itself has troops in Ukraine and is fighting, so which is it? I searched and found a 1 month old MSN fact checking article (lol I know) and some typical bitchute-tier videos claiming this but that's it.
Given that I'm not a mindless NPC viewer of CNN, I check out a variety of forums and sources from different ideological agendas. I've seen these vague claims and speculations but never with anything approaching a reputable source. It strikes me as both very unlikely prima facie but also fully in line with typical Russian propaganda claims intended to sow distrust and doubt but not really be believable. I've seen some photos of some captured Javelins (the kind of thing that happens to both sides in wars like this), but that's not what we're talking about here. The thought of Russia rearming itself with NATO gear would certainly be the plot twist of the century but it's obviously ridiculous. Please write these kind of bold claims down in a notebook and come back in 1 month to a year when there has been ample time to evaluate if they are true or just glownigger disinfo. I've found this approach exceptionally good, simple, and not time intensive for evaluating these kind of sources and assessing credibility (e.g. McAfee, Kim Dotcom, Qanon, Trump, ZeroHedge, Faucci). Let the written records and time do the work for you for free because certain groups like to flood you with bs and hope you'll get distracted by the next moving claim once the original looks false. Judge harshly the sources if they ended up peddling unsubstantiated nonsense with such tactics.
As a side note, I've noticed lots of similarities between Russian propaganda and social media talking points and with QAnon in terms of the style, tactics, and modes of operations (e.g. persecuted hero complex against the corrupt elite, a barrage of claims that get forgotten by followers a few weeks later, bizarre/illogical/improbable claims, self-contradicting lies in the claims, shady and untrustworthy individuals associated with the whole operation). I'm not a big believer in the status quo and big institutions like the New York Times when looking for truth but it's foolish to instead treat the other side with less skepticism. Food for thought when reading and evaluating claims. But if we're going to criticize the NYT for how it got Iraq wrong, etc, we need to also credibly evaluate the track record of forums like Voat, pol, or ZeroHedge. Those places are good for getting alternative viewpoints that the MSM doesn't cover, but it would be big cringe to take them as more credible just because they're reporting bold, interesting, or ideologically favorable rumors--especially if we reaching for everything that passes as a rumor or opinion there. Realistically the signal to noise ratio is outrageously bad there and we need to be just as discerning and skeptical (or even more) than when viewing Fox/CNN/NPR/NYT/WaPo etc.
In summary, I find these kind of Russian claims both highly implausible and having a really bad track record at both being true and for making predictions about the future.
This is a long one to do on mobile. Just to start
Fox/CNN/NPR/NYT/WaPo etc
Even if I had cable I wouldn't watch them, listen to them or read them.
Right, even before getting sanctioned to Iran/NK levels, they struggled fielding a modern army/air force/navy
Russia never intended on having a powerful airforce. They knew that they could not compete with NATO, hence why they spent their time on anti-air defense. The S-500 is quite awesome. Hell, Turkey got sanctioned for buying some S-400's since nothing else was better at the time.
Also for army, Russia tends to just throw bodies at the enemy and it seems to work. They have 3 million military now, one third active two third reserve. That's a lot of bodies.
Yeah, hypersonic seems mostly like vanity projects
No current tech can shoot down a descending hypersonic missile. It would take minutes to take out the entire US Pacific Fleet.
Some estimates i've heard is that about 1/4 of NATO equipment sent to neighbor country ends up in Russia either by sale, gift or siezure.
Yeah that's anon data, but take for example what US troops leave behind when retreating bases and fortified areas. 82 billion in Afganistan. Why wouldn't Ukraine leave the heavy stuff behind when running from certain death? They know they'll get more.
Correct assessment of their doctrine and capabilities. Carrying on from the Soviet era, they've always optimized for defense and relying on their rail network and vast terrain. Consequently they have limited expeditionary capabilities or ability to project force, as evidenced by the results in their neighboring country. The outcome of a conflict on their own turf would be a different matter, and nobody has interest in finding that out.
Their top technical strengths historically have always been radar in the pre-digital era (where they're now behind, however), SAMs, and rockets. And just massive production of cheap, simple systems. FWIW, I'd be curious to see how the S-400 actually performs in the field. Out of all their systems, it's about the only one of theirs that I think might be pretty good, effective, and numerous enough to matter.
Russian equipment tends to look amazing if you just look at the specs, but there is a lot more to a functioning system than parameters like range, speed, super-maneuvering, so many missiles, etc. Systems integration, training, crew motivation, quantity fielded, maintenance, supply chains, intelligence, ECM, etc matter just as much or more.
They also tend to hype up wunderwaffe type systems that they have trouble fielding (e.g. Su-57, T-14) or probably don't even exist or make sense (e.g. Status-6, a stealth 100 megaton nuclear cobalt-laced toperdo with some variants designed to destroy coastal cities but some other variants that have supercavitation and are designed to attack carrier groups, wtf have enough buzzwords and disparate missions?). They're the flashy "new money" showing off while the US "old money" runs the secret skunk works projects that aren't revealed until needed. So they've got some flashy stuff, but even after spending the last 20 years modernizing, most of their equipment still is Soviet tier or questionable quality and at least a bad decade of the 90s sitting in Siberian winter.
A fun exercise to do on this is check out the Wikipedia article on some of the weapon systems (e.g. Su-27). It's a long list of official announcements about modernization upgrades to their systems that were supposed to be completed years ago but no updates. Taken at face value, they've modernized at least 120% of their arsenal. These articles also tend to have a very distinct "tone" hyping them up, mentioning grandiose claims from officials or random professor at Irkutsk Technical Institute for Thermochemicalphysics No 7, or just bringing up bizarre comparisons to other competitor systems. You pick up on that after reading enough wiki articles, which is consistent with their strategy of hyping their capabilities and strong propaganda.
Hopefully this all remains armchair general speculation and the world never finds out.