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Just like how this Russian bulletproof vest is a lie, everything else about the Russian

military should be taken with a large grain of salt!

While the vest looks solid, it certainly doesn’t hold up when it's put to the real test.

But why believe what a YouTube channel is telling you, when you can hear about systematic

lies and corruption within the Russian military, straight from primetime Russian National TV.

In a rare outburst on November 11th, Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent anchor on the state-owned

Russia-1 TV channel, did not hold back, talking about the lies that the Russian military has

been hiding behind, from the bottom to the very top.

This included deceptions about what actually is in the Russian inventories, the true state

of the military equipment, and the number of troops they actually have on the front

lines.

Now let me say that without a doubt, the Russian army still got a serious punch, but at the

same time, it's not the army that we are led to believe, especially when you see the many

examples that point to their lack of might.

Some may call what we are about to present “anecdotal evidence”, but we will let

you be the judge of the true state of the second best army in the world.

But how the Russo-Ukrainian war itself may have possibly been a direct result of “systemic

lying” that is entrenched within the Russian government, is Not What You Think!

Let’s start with the biggest lie of all, that Russians are liberating historical Russian

lands from Ukraine’s Nazi Regime, the so called denazification and demilitarization.

The city of Kherson was the only administrative center that Russia managed to capture during

their 2022 invasion, which they later annexed and declared it “Russian Forever”.

They even put posters all over the city, proclaiming that Russia is here forever.

Ironically that didn’t last long, because on November 11th the Russian army was forced

by Ukrainians to retreat to the east bank of the Dnipro river.

As the Ukrainian forces entered Kherson, they were welcomed by the cheering Ukrainian population.

Scenes like this quickly turned the Russian referendum narrative upside down, as it was

claimed that 87% of the Kherson population voted in favor of joining Russia.

Clearly not.

Not only Kherson was taken back by Ukraine, but also many Russian telegram channels became

disillusioned.

Even back in March of 2022, when Russia invaded Kherson, the local population greeted the

aggressors not with flowers and Russian flags, but with Ukrainian colors as they yelled at

the Russians to go home.

The Russian ministry of defense proclaimed that 100% of its troops and equipment were

successfully “relocated” to the other side of the river, without leaving anything

behind.

I must admit, this does look quite organized the way Russian stripped off their gear and

swam naked across the river.

As one might expect, Russian TV portrays everything about the Russian military in the best possible

way, so why don’t we balance it out?!

Where and what the Russian soldiers ate was great, in reality though, many were given

food rations with expiry dates in 2015.

This is how Russian soldiers do their laundry, although in reality, they are using washing

machines that were stolen from Ukrainian homes.

When Russia declared a partial mobilization back in September, it became evident that

the 1.5 million uniforms Russia had bought and ordered years ago … existed only on

paper.

That’s why Russia advised their mobilized men to buy their own clothes and gear, as

otherwise they risk receiving shoes of different sizes, or some that date back to the 1940s,

or possibly nothing at all.

The Russian military can’t even supply soldiers with enough socks, nevermind helmets or bulletproof

vests.

Even the infamous Russian terrorist, Igor Strelkov, frequently runs crowdfunding campaigns

on his telegram channel for basic equipment, like shoes.

Speaking of helmets, there are multiple examples of what looks like a helmet, but in reality

… it’s not.

I don't even know what to call this … but this is definitely not a combat helmet.

In some instances, Russians have been caught wearing 1950’s helmets which were repackaged

with modern covers.

In other instances, the helmets appear to be made out of plastic.

Going back to the bulletproof vests, you will be lucky to have got one which has some kind

of metal plate instead of cardboard or foam.

When it comes to the sizes of the vests, yet again you get what you get.

There is other evidence that points to the lack of basic equipment for the Russian troops,

like the facts that they have ordered uniforms from Belarus and Iran, as well as numerous

crowdfunding campaigns which supply Russian soldiers with uniforms, helmets, vests and

so on.

When it comes to weapons the situation isn't much better.

The harsh reality is that Russia cannot provide its troops with enough quality weapons outside

of the TV shoots.

While Russians have a lot of Soviet Kalashnikov automatic rifles, their condition is “poor”

as you can see.

But it gets worse!

During training, mobilized men have to use mock weapons, because they simply don’t

have enough real ones.

Jumping to the battlefield, Ukrainians have found Russian troops using rusty and antiquated

weapons.

For example, this is the Mosin-Nagant rifle which dates back to 1891.

Yes, it is still used in Russia, but only as a ceremonial weapon.

The shortage of guns on the battlefield meant this century old rifle made it to the Ukrainian

battlefield.

This is actually supposed to be a decoy, and why pick at a decoy, when the drones are not

much more impressive!

Russian TV often shows videos of “Ohotnik” stealth drones, but they are not even in production

yet.

What is in production is “Orlan-10” arguably the most effective Russian reconnaissance

drone with a price tag of about $100,000.

But what’s interesting is what’s inside these drones.

The drones that were shot down surprised Ukrainians, because they were equipped with consumer grade

point & shoot cameras like Canon and Sony.

Additionally, the funnel for the fuel was made from a plastic soda bottle.

And of course electronics inside were all western made.

That is some Russian manufacturing!

TANKS On paper Russia has over 10,000 tanks, but…..

most of them are in reserve, and chances are most will not even start.

It was estimated that at the beginning of the war Russia had just over 3,300 operational

tanks.

Fast forward to today, and Russia has lost nearly 1,500 tanks based on visual confirmation.

So Russians had no other choice but to pull the T-62 out of storage, the ones that actually

could be started.

Since T-62s were produced in the 1960’s, it makes you wonder what kind of condition

these 60 year old tanks were kept in.

But wait!

How about Russia’s newest main battle Tank, the infamous T-14 Armata?

And that’s a fair question.

Let’s just say that in 2015, during the parade preparations in Red Square, one Armata

stalled.

The commentator on the live broadcast said that it was a planned demonstration of “towing

military equipment”.

That’s a first!

In the end Russia decided to not mass produce T-14s, citing that the tank was too costly.

Instead they produced a limited number of T-14s and modernized older soviet tanks.

RUSSIAN AIR FORCE

When it comes to the Russian Air Force, just like with the tanks, it looks great on paper.

They have just over 1,100 fixed wing fighter and attack jets.

But here’s the thing, most of the aircraft are undermaintained, so some of them fall

down to earth even without Ukrainian help!

In the recent months, multiple aircraft have been lost due to equipment malfunction even

before they made it to the Ukrainian battlefields.

But worse, according to western intelligence, it is very likely that Russia has more aircraft

than they have pilots, because training pilots is quite expensive.

Russian pilots receive a fraction of flight time every year, compared to their NATO counterparts.

According to British intelligence, Russian air combat training was heavily scripted and

designed to impress senior officials.

The budget that was supposed to go toward proper training and development of Russia’s

own navigation systems such as GLONASS, which is basically a Russian GPS, must have ended

up somewhere else, because among the wreckage of Russian airplanes, Ukrainians frequently

found consumer grade GPS receivers such as Garmin or even smartphones, which Russian

pilots would have had to use due to the poor quality of Russia’s own navigation systems.

Yeah, Russian pilots would tape commercial GPS receivers to their dashboard!

Of course when this embarrassment became evident, the Russian Ministry of Defense started blurring

the cockpit dashboard to avoid further criticism.

Then there’s the Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, which is not an aircraft

carrier.

It is classified as a heavy aircraft cruiser.

Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to pass through the Turkish straits due to the Montreux convention.

Nevertheless , this carrier scares everybody, not only environmentalists … for obvious

reasons, but also the pilots and the crew onboard the ship.

Admiral Kuznetsov is so reliable that it has to be accompanied by a tugboat.

More often than not, the carrier’s propulsion systems break down in the middle of a sea,

forcing it to be towed to the nearest port.

Admiral Kuznetsov is currently in the dry dock where among other things, its propulsion

systems are being replaced.

When it comes to Russian missiles, not only do they rely on western electronics, they

are also far less accurate than we are led to believe.

In a recent review, the US Naval Institute concluded that Russia’s claims regarding

their missile accuracy were exaggerated.

Russians advertised an accuracy of a few meters, but the reality was more like 30m to 50m.

In addition, western intelligence suggests that Russian missiles suffered up to 60% failure

rate during the early days of the Ukraine war, which makes Russian missiles sound like

“Russian Roulette”! Seriously.

Numerous Russian missiles have refused to fly to foreign territories and just wanted

to come back home!

To be fair, Ukrainian missiles sometimes also appear to go off course, as happened on Nov

15th, when they ended up in Poland, killing two civilians.

Another Russian tech with exaggerated performance is the S-400 air defense system which was

proclaimed by the manufacturer to be capable of intercepting HIMARS artillery rockets.

But as you can see, that is clearly not the case.

To be fair, the S-400 is still among the most capable air defense systems in the world today.

But it's clearly not as capable as it's often perceived to be.

Even according to Igor Strelkov, the S-400 is not effective against large HIMARS attacks.

Let’s switch gears to Ukrainian forces for a minute.

No one imagined that Ukrainian forces could stand against an invasion from Russia, similar

to what happened with Crimea in 2014 . Obviously, the Western help made all the difference in

2022, and it's hard to imagine Ukrainian Forces having the levels of success that they’ve

had, without the US and NATO.

But even without all the external help, there is a key difference between Ukrainian soldiers

and Russian troops.

Ukrainians know what they are fighting for, and the same cannot be said for Russians.

The Russian military is currently in the same state as the Ukrainian forces were back in

2014.

Let me explain.

Even though the Russian annual military budget is about 1/10th that of the US military, Russia

still spent over $1 trillion dollars over the past 15 years.

$1 trillion dollars is a lot of money, but where did that money go?

A big chunk of the money went to the Russian Navy.

Russia built two Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates, each costing $450 million dollars.

They also built three Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates with a unit cost of $430 million

dollars.

Russia additionally paid $250 million dollars for each of its 7 brand new corvettes, plus

another $160 million dollars for each of its 2 brand new landing ships.

But at the same time, Russian Oligarchs with close ties to President Putin began building

their own fleet.

The fleet of Mega Yachts!

Let me mention a few: Here is businessman Alisher Usmanov’s Dilbar mega yacht . This

is the former Russian governor, Roman Abramovich’s Eclipse, and this one is Former Deputy Chairman,

Igor Sechin’s Amore Vero . While over the past 15 years, Russia spent $3.2 billion dollars

building new warships, President Putin’s oligarchs spent just over $4.1 billion dollars

building their new mega yachts.

But these mega yachts are just the tip of the iceberg.

Yachts are just large enough for everyone to notice, but the amount of money that has

been stolen from Russia’s military and non-military budgets, is enormous.

This systemic corruption is the reason why Russian troops were receiving explosive charges

that had wood in them, instead of TNT.

This corruption is why the reactive armor on Russian tanks was filled with rubber instead

of explosive charges.

This is why Russians never properly invested into the communication equipment, and got

stuck using old Soviet radios, and even Chinese walkie-talkies.

This is Sergey Pugachyov, a former close friend of Vladimir Putin.

During countless live streams, he has shared his stories of what it was like being a part

of President Putin’s inner circle.

He claims that even during the Soviet Union times, in the late 80s, everyone in the Soviet

and consequently Russian military believed that there would NEVER be a war.

As long as there was nuclear deterrence, some kind of a balance would be maintained, meaning

that conventional wars were not needed.

According to Pugachyov, President Putin never prepared for this war, because fighting a

war in Ukraine was basically impossible.

What I mean by that, is that the guiding principle and primary belief of the Russian military

officers was that as long as there is a nuclear balance, a conventional war would never be

needed.

And why would they believe otherwise?

Afterall, Russia marched into Crimea in 2014 and just claimed the lands, with no repercussions.

So I f there is never going to be a war, why invest in it?

Why put money into stockpiles of helmets, weapons and bullet proof vests, when they

would never be used.

Nobody in the Russian military envisioned the scale of the war that they are now seeing

in Ukraine.

So the budget was simply stolen and went toward mega yachts, dachas and other luxuries.

But if President Putin didn’t want a war, and was never prepared for it, why did he

start a war with Ukraine?

Well he didn’t.

He started a “special military operation”, where the Russian army was expected to walk

into the Ukrainian capital with minimal resistance, where paid Russian supporters would greet

the troops with flowers and Russian flags.

Both Russian propaganda, and even the Belarusian president, claimed on TV that Ukraine will

be taken in a matter of days.

Even Americans originally gave Ukraine less than 96 hours and even offered to evacuate

President Zelensky, to which he famously replied “The fight is here.

I need ammunition, not a ride.”

… I guess comedians are not always funny.

Over the past several years, President Putin poured billions of dollars into people like

the Ukrainian Oligarch, Viktor Medvechuk, who was supposed to organize pro-Russian movements

all over Ukraine.

And that’s where the real irony lies.

The money that was supposed to sponsor pro-Russian movements across Ukraine was stolen, the same

way that the Russian military budget was.

According to Pugachyov, Russia has spent tens of billions of dollars financing the former

member of Ukrainian parliament, Viktor Medvechuk, former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych,

and more during the past decades.

President Putin was under the impression that the people whom he was paying to establish

a pro-Russian movement, were doing their jobs, preparing Ukraine for a takeover.

Afterall, President Putin’s only trusted source of information is his inner circle,

some of whom were getting paid by him.

Of course, those people were giving him the thumbs up.

It’s all good.

We are ready to become part of Russia.

Just like Crimea.

Bring in the troops.

The scary part is that the culture of lies within the Russian media, military and government

was so strong, that it appears even people in charge started believing their own lies,

that they could take over Ukraine in a matter of days.

Even the West fell victim to Russian lies.

In February of 2022, President Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine, where Russian soldiers

were greeted by Ukrainians, not with flowers and Russian flags, but with N-LAWs and Javelins.

The rest is history, and speaking of history, this is the “Tsar Bell”, which was made

by order of the Russian Empress, Anna Ioannovna in 1730.

The Bell was made so people would remember her rule.

Mind you, it was never used as an actual bell.

This is the “Tsar Cannon” which was made in 1586 by order of the Russian Tsar, Feodor

Ioannovich, in his recognition.

Although, it was not fired a single time.

This is the launch of the Russian hypersonic glide vehicle, Avangard, which can carry both

nuclear and conventional payloads.

Traveling at speeds of up to Mach 27, Russia claims that Avangard can change its speed

and direction in order to outmaneuver missile defense systems.

Something that ballistic missiles cannot do.

Russia claims that it would take at least 50 SM-3 missiles to shoot down one Avangard

glide vehicle.

This is the Russian Poseidon nuclear torpedo, which Russia alleges can travel at speed of

up to 100 knots, at a depth of 3280 feet, and has an unlimited range.

Poseidon can deliver a nuclear warhead with a yield of up to 100 megatons, suggesting

that if detonated near the shores of the UK, it would produce a tsunami 1,600 feet tall

which would submerge the entire UK under radioactive water.

This is the stuff that they show on Russian National TV.

If you ask me, Avangard and Poseidon are going to have a similar fate as the cannon and the

bell.

Afterall, President Putin said it himself in an interview: “We are not planning to

fight a war with anyone, our goal is to create a perception so nobody thinks to fight us.

And this is why the Russian military … is not what you think.