Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The former Russian president took to state-backed social media to boast about new prototypes with “no analogues in the world”—except NATO deployed similar systems 20 years ago.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev traveled to the Southern Federal District this week to inspect live firing trials of new military equipment. Flanked by senior defense specialists, he spent the visit reviewing fresh prototypes. He wasted no time sharing his verdict.
Taking to the Russian state-backed messaging app Max, he shared video footage of the tests alongside a sweeping boast. “The results of today’s tests generally show that our science and our industry are capable of creating weapons that have no analogues in the world,” Medvedev noted after watching the tests, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
The demonstration covered a wide mix of frontline gear. Russian engineers tested guided rockets, heavy artillery, and loitering strike drones, while also evaluating defense systems designed to knock enemy drones straight out of the sky and protect vital military facilities.
The wider push
These demonstrations did not arrive out of the blue. Only seven days earlier, extensive war games dubbed Center-2026 brought several of the exact same defense prototypes straight to the Kremlin’s top decision-maker.
“Let me remind you that a week ago, during the ‘Center-2026’ exercises, a number of the products presented today were shown to the supreme commander,” he added.
The title was a direct nod to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who personally observed the large-scale military maneuvers.
Moscow continues to insist its weapons are rapidly gaining range and striking precision. According to earlier statements, Putin stressed that newly designed weapons must deliver clear battlefield results while actively protecting the lives and health of Russian troops.
Kremlin claims vs. reality
Medvedev took the rhetoric even further. In recent days, the former president claimed that Russia’s adversaries simply lack the kind of advanced weaponry Moscow already commands.
Defense analysts and military monitors disagree with Medvedev’s claims: none of the hardware paraded before him represents an unprecedented breakthrough.
Across every category showcased—satellite-guided rocketry, automated heavy artillery, kamikaze drones, and mobile anti-drone batteries—NATO and allied militaries already field direct counterparts, and in many cases, have deployed them operationally for decades.
2025 assessments from defense institutes like the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) note that Moscow is not inventing peerless capabilities; it is working to replicate deep-strike precision and automated fire doctrines that Western forces mastered in the early 2000s.
More crucially, analysts emphasize the massive gulf between camera-ready proving grounds and the realities of high-intensity warfare. Assembling a handful of hand-crafted prototypes for state television is easy. Mass-producing them at combat volume—while struggling to source high-grade microelectronics and precision tooling under international sanctions—remains Russia’s real, unresolved bottleneck.
