THE UK has said Russia’s military is “significantly weaker” after its failure to “dominate” Ukraine, despite more than doubling their military spending.

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Russian army in RUINS: Putin troops now ‘significantly weaker’ – £38bn funding blitz fails
THE UK has said Russia’s military is “significantly weaker” after its failure to “dominate” Ukraine, despite more than doubling their military spending.
07:45, Tue, May 3, 2022 | UPDATED: 16:47, Tue, May 3, 2022
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According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia’s military budget had surged to $65.9 billion (£52,627,344,600) in 2021. The budget had more than doubled from 2005, where Russia had spent $27.34b (£21,833,559,960).
Now, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said Moscow’s military has failed to see them “dominate” Ukraine despite the spending splurge.
They said: “Russia’s defence budget approximately doubled between 2005 and 2018, with investment in several high-end air, land and sea capabilities.
“From 2008 this underpinned the expansive military modernisation programme New Look.
“However, the modernisation of its physical equipment has not enabled Russia to dominate Ukraine.

“Failures both in strategic planning and operational execution have left it unable to translate numerical strength into decisive advantage.
‘Russia’s military is now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions.
“This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force.”
Since February 24 and as of April 24, Russia has lost 21,900 troops in Ukraine according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.
Moscow has also been forced to retreat from areas in the east of Ukraine, including Mariupol and Kherson.

Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, SIPRI researcher, noted Russia’s “national defence” budget line, which covers operational costs and weapons purchases, leapt up 14 percent compared to 2020, reaching $48.4bn (£38,651,949,600) before the war.
She said: “High oil and gas revenues helped Russia to boost its military spending in 2021.
“Russian military expenditure had been in decline between 2016 and 2019 as a result of low energy prices.”
At the same time, Ukraine’s military spending fell in 2021 to just $5.9bn (£4,711,704,600), SIPRI noted.

Stefan Hedlund, Swedish expert on Soviet and Communist studies/Russian studies and Professor of East European Studies at Uppsala University, said “Putin-era attempts at modernizing Russia’s armed forces have failed”.
Mr Hedlund pointed to “the breakdown of essential logistics, the failure of command and control, the decrepit condition of much of the hardware and the poor accuracy of precision-guided munitions” as the “main lessons of the Kremlin’s failure”.
Writing for GIS, he noted Russia’s wars against Chechnya and Georgia, and added that post-Syria “the Russian military command failed to ensure air superiority, came up short on command and control and suffered considerable attrition of senior officers, including generals and admirals killed in Ukrainian strikes”.
He said: “Once the new-style readiness brigades had failed abysmally, the military command resorted to its tried tactics of encircling cities and using missiles and artillery to transform civilian housing into rubble.
“The hardware’s poor performance, including the misses of supposedly precision-guided munitions, may be linked to endemic corruption in Russia’s military sector.
“Official auditors have suggested that a fifth of the Russian defense budget is defrauded every year; this may still be an underestimation.”

It comes a day after Ukraine claimed a Russian general and some 200 soldiers were killed in an attack launched by Ukrainian forces on Saturday evening in the Russian-controlled city of Izium.
The attack may have been targeting the Russian military chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who had left the location prior to the attack.
A senior Ukrainian official and two US officials confirmed the details to The New York Times.
Russia has not yet confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Andrei Simonov, who was identified by reports as the general killed in the attack.
According to the Times, Gen. Gerasimov visited risky front-line positions in eastern Ukraine last week in an effort to aid Russia’s floundering offensive there.
Kyiv learned of his visit and launched the strike on a position he had visited, a school in Izium, but was too late to hit him.
“The hardware’s poor performance, including the misses of supposedly precision-guided munitions, may be linked to endemic corruption in Russia’s military sector.”
Corruption in all levels of society, civilian and military, is one of the biggest contributors of Ukrainian victory on part of mafia land contributions. The other mafia contribution is gross incompetence.
Yesterday Boris vowed to help ensure “no-one will ever dare to attack you again”.
Essential, but first, the invaders must be completely removed one way or another. Once that has been achieved, the cheapest way to protect Ukraine is to build them an integrated air defence system, provide cruise missiles and a separate nuclear deterrent.
Ukraine will also require a land army of one million plus and a modern Air Force.