“All of their defense industry really answers directly to the state"

As opposed to what, shareholders and the bottom line? These people are ridiculous.

As an example, he pointed to main battle tanks. Before the war, he said, Russia was delivering about 150 to 250 a year. But of those, he assessed, about 20 to 30 would have been new, while the rest were heavily refurbished. So while Cavoli’s written testimony in April said Russia could make up to 1,200 tanks per year, Connolly estimated that, at a maximum, 400 of those are new or heavily refurbished. Everything else, he said, is pulled from storage, lightly repaired and then deployed. The RUSI report from February estimated about 80% of Russia’s wartime production was actually refurbished, aging materiel.

Only in the West can one find a way to interpret an increase in armored vehicle production by the opposition to actually be good news because it’s actually fake.

“I’ve got a great idea, let’s all march with our rifles pointed directly at the head of the person marching next to us!”