If you know anything about Soviet/Russian history you know that Joe Stalin pretty much founded the current system of rule under which Vladimir Putin now operates. What had been discarded in the brief period of democratization Putin has now put back in place. One of the hallmarks of the Soviet/Stalin system, was the habit of killing the messenger. Stalin had a minister of agriculture shot for reporting the actual wheat harvest results, rather than the target harvest numbers. It made Stalin look like a liar and so he was shot. This sent a clear message to all the other apparatchiks of the Soviet system that apparently was learned by the bureaucrats in the Russian system to this day. You tell your superiors what they want to hear, not the truth. This was obviously at work when Putin decided to invade the Ukraine. He was assured that the Russian military could easily win, when its anyone looking at its recent performance in Chechnya and the Donbas was anything to brag about. Now Russia is a laughing stock. A third world country with nukes. So anyone who believes ANYTHING coming out of Russia is an idiot. I could say the same about the Ukraine. After all, they learned about propaganda, dis and mis information from the Soviets/Russians in the first place. Funny thing is the Russians were leaders in Operational Research, that is the quantification of historical battler results to try and make predictions of battles in the future. In depth analysis was made of historical outcomes by looking a a host of variables such as weapons effectiveness, terrain, troop morale, and a lot of others. A caveate here. Dupuy in the US and others in the UK built on the Russian work and were quite good at predicting what would happen. So if the Russians were still doing operational research, what happened? Could it be a case of "garbage in and garbage out?" By this I mean, were the numbers they used as input, the bullshit propaganda numbers reported from the various commanders and functionaries in the military during WWII? We know that generally all the official historical reports were pure fiction where losses were either swept under the historical carpet or reported as draws, where minor victories were victories and...well you get the idea. Here is an example. The T-34 tank has been presented by WWII histories as this great technological marvel, the best tank of WWII. when in actuality the only thing it really had that was better than other tanks of the day was sloped armor and wide tracks. Its mechanical reliability and durability was about that of a Russian Lada sedan. They needed complete overhauls after about 200-300 road miles, or at least a engine change. Their factory quality control was shit and it took Detroit to help get things sorted out for them. What probably kept this from being more common knowledge was the fact that most of the T-34s got blown up courtesy of the Germans before they broke down. Another bit of propaganda was most of the Soviet tank production during the was was, LIGHT tank production, not the heavier T-34 or KV lines of tanks, because automotive plants could make the lighter tanks. Bottom line is don't believe a word coming out of Russian, or for that matter the Ukraine. They have over a hundred years of peddling lies and the West has believed them the entire time. Even while Stalin was busy murdering millions of Ukrainians and Belarusian Kulaks in order to steal their land reporters in the UK and the US at famous news papers were reporting news releases from the Soviet government saying it wasn't happening.

"Dupuy in the US and others in the UK built on the Russian work and were quite good at predicting what would happen. So if the Russians were still doing operational research, what happened? Could it be a case of "garbage in and garbage out?" By this I mean, were the numbers they used as input, the bullshit propaganda numbers reported from the various commanders and functionaries in the military during WWII?" What happened is this: they founded the field of study, but failed to develop the method properly accounting for all the variables. In some cases, due to the reason, you mention above: demand to show the desired outcome rather than reality. " The T-34 tank has been presented by WWII histories as this great technological marvel, the best tank of WWII" No, it was presented as the first tank in WWII that presented the modern design: sloping armor, diesel engine, Christie suspension, low ground pressure, and heavy gun (for the times). Gasoline engines in Sherman and Valentine made them burn like candles. It's the design that combined all those features that made it iconic. Implementation problems like reliability, etc., are a different story.