Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t rule out the reverse engineering of NATO equipment captured in Ukraine in cases where doing so could improve Russia’s own weapons.
“There’s the expression ‘reverse engineering’. We’ll see what happens, because modern equipment…we have it, and it’s very effective, let’s take the T-90 Proryv tank for example, which is the best tank in the world without any exaggeration. But the enemy also produces modern equipment. And if there’s an opportunity to look inside and see if there’s something there that we can use, well, why not?” Putin said in an interview with Russian television on Sunday.
The United States and its European and Asian allies have committed over $94.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the past 18 months, far outstripping the size of Russia’s entire defense budget of $56.6 billion. These expenditures, which included the delivery of some of NATO’s most cutting-edge, battle-tested equipment, have nevertheless failed to enable Ukrainian forces to puncture Russian defensive lines in the Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson.
NATO powers have committed everything from Leopard 2 tanks (including some of their latest modifications) to Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Stryker armored fighting vehicles, HIMARS rocket launchers, Caesar howitzers, Storm Shadow cruise missiles, NASAMS and Patriot air defense systems, with some countries sending virtually their entire stockpiles of some of these weapons. NATO has also sent a range of modern man-portable weapons, including Panzerfaust and Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and a range of drones, jamming equipment, radar, engineering and other equipment.
Some of these weapons, including everything from Javelins and Stingers to Bradleys and Leopards, have been captured by Russian forces, with some equipment now serving with Russian forces.