The West likes to inflate the cost of Russian weapons as a way to suggest Moscow is in a financial bind and manipulate the narrative of a looming Ukraine victory — while also masking real inefficiencies in the U.S. defense industry. By assuming Russian weapons have input costs similar to U.S. systems or conflating export prices with Russia’s internal costs, Western estimates produce misleading figures. These inflated costs bolster the narrative that the strain on Moscow is tremendous, whi...
