Russia spent a lot of advertising and propaganda money to seem that way. T14 and SU57 were essentially just ads trying to say 'we're still relevant and modern!' It benefited their arms sales, as well as some diplomatic advantages. But that all falls away when it's actually put to the test.

[–] Chariotwheel@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

I mean, most countries do that in various ways. There are two differences for Russia in that matter.

They actually had a lot of Soviet weapons still around. Like, in quantity Russia was playing in the big leagues. The issue was just, of course, that a lot of it was unusable and got worse over the years with lacking maintenance and with technology getting more and more obsolete. Nevertheless, Russia had certainly a lot of arms and vehicles.
The Soviet Union was quite powerful and the image has still stuck with people and Russia did its best with parades and all to pretend that the glory is still with Russia. I put a bit of that blame also on American media repeating the image of the powerful Soviet Union as a dangerous adversary.

The war in Ukraine made it clearer than ever that Russia is only a shadow of what the Soviet Union once was in power projection.