Putin HATES THEM!
Or does he?
Top 10 Failed Wonderweapons of the Ukrainian War⬇️
My criteria are simple - these are weapons (defined loosely) that were heavily hyped by Western pundits that actually failed in service.
So, for example, the Leopard 2 isn't on here because it's actually a perfectly functional tank that has performed in line with other tanks.
10. The Ukrainian Foreign Legion
After the war kicked off, Western outlets began encouraging adventurous foreigners to travel to Ukraine to fight. These new recruits were housed in barracks at the Yavorov Training Ground.
One Russian missile strike largely ended the project.
9. Switchblade
This "drone in a can" was supposed to allow Ukrainian troops to deliver lethal, precise strikes at standoff range.
While drones have transformed the Ukrainian battlefield, Switchblade itself was complicated and ineffective. I've seen five used in two years.
8. NASAMS
This surface-to-air AMRAAM adaptation fell prey to the problem that all SAM adaptations of air-to-air missiles do - missiles designed for high-speed aerial launch don't have the legs to perform from a dead stop.
Far from "closing the sky," this system has been MIA.
7. Excalibur shells
This GPS-guided precision 155mm artillery shell performed well in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Russian jamming has apparently rendered it ineffective on the far harsher Ukrainian battlefield.
6. The Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb
This LEGO-esque combination of a 227mm MLRS booster and a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb was supposed to allow the AFU to stretch their HIMARS systems out to 150km.
The slow-moving glide bombs were shot down easily by Russian air defenses.
5. Bayraktar TB-2
Ukraine bought these Turkish drones en masse after their good showing in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.
As it turns out, Russian air defenses are a little stiffer than Armenian ones. They were shot down in droves and quickly withdrawn from combat.
4. Challenger 2
The UK donated a company of its premiere war machines to the Ukrainian cause, with shills hyping them to the moon as indestructible.
The Russians were unimpressed and blew one up. The British government reacted by demanding the rest be withdrawn from combat.
3. Javelin
When the war started this IR-guided fire-and-forget antitank missile was hyped as a magic wand that could delete Russian tanks at the push of a button.
Battlefield conditions and Russian countermeasures degraded its performance and it has rarely been observed in use.
2. The "Arsenal of Democracy"
The Western powers vowed to keep Ukraine supplied with everything needed to win the war. They have failed to do so.
Once derided as a "gas station with nukes," Russia produces substantially more war materiel than the entire Western Alliance.
1. Sanctions
The most comprehensive sanctions regime in history, intended to collapse the Russian economy and force Putin to surrender, comprehensively backfired.
Russia is now wealthier than ever despite fourteen rounds of sanctions, while European economies wither by the day.
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