memes

The actual answer to this is that the Soviets did have legitimate logistics issues during WW2, as well as pretty serious quality control issues with many kinds of fighting vehicles, as well as a lack of repair parts for said vehicles actually being with the units that needed them.

At least some of these issues were significantly helped by the US lend-leasing them fucktons of supply trucks and various spare/repair parts.

But uh, by the Cold War, they had largely gotten their shit together and were not really signifcantly better or worse than other major militaries...

...you could perhaps say the Soviets were overly fond of building all kinds of vehicles that other militaries would use a more fuel efficient chassis as a basis for... the Soviets a bit more so just kept basing things off of the same, reliable and proven, but fuel inefficient chassis and engines originally designed for tanks...

... but they also directly held an outsized proportion of oil reserves, compared to other countries... so its kind of moot.

But, then, after the Soviet Union collapsed... well, now nobody in charge of fuel depots, vehicle depots, ammo depots, etc, is getting paid much, or anything, so... now they are having an unofficial yard sale.

And this kind of corruption just became normalized, as... everyone of the oligarchs after the collapse basically became so by just getting handed some chunk of the previously state run economy to now manage as a private enterprise... shock doctrine, austerity on steroids... so, if all the leaders of society are operating this way, well why not do it yourself?

IIRC, Pepsi at one point purchased a submarine.

Putin tried to reform the military out of this culture, but he uh... didn't quite achieve all that he thought he had.

...

Its sorta like how a lot of people in the US just view the French as utterly militarily inept... because they got overrun in WW2.

Despite that they played a very major role in WW1, they, basically maintained an empire of colonial holdings by fighting a whole bunch of minor wars during the cold war, and still to this day have not actually granted full autonomy to their 'former colonies', still have a military presence in them...

But general layman American understanding of anything military basically always starts at, or directly refers back to WW2.