this is compounded by the fact that much of the armor on the ground in ukraine does not actually seem to feature the advanced defenses developed during the soviet era, like ERA. i've seen several photos of what appears to be decoy ERA on destroyed t-72's, which was nothing more than a hollow brick of steel. i suspect graft or a weak economy is the reason.

Forget decoys, some of the videos coming out of Ukraine were showing plenty of Russian tanks with the bags for the reactive armor sagging down clearly only holding the spacers and no ERA plates. It's like the troops believed the cover story that they were only going near the border for a training exercise.

the source of these pictures are all from ukraine. it's not far fetched to think they removed era and planted inert spacer to demoralize the enemy. in general, while the fog of war is in full effect, I wouldn't trust any one-sided intel.

How would fake lack of ERA demoralise the enemy when the enemy is getting destroyed anyhow, even if they have ERA? (And in your scenario, if it did have ERA)

invaders weren't being pushed back when the initial claims circulated.

That takes too much effort, also, Ukrainians know that if they went through all of that effort people would just say exactly what you are saying, so it’s doubly a waste of time And therefore a major risk for their lives.

what a silly, circular argument.

True.

But Ukraine is advancing. So they are winning anyway which indicates that something is going wrong on Russia side and it fits the outcome.

I would argue that based on that you can assume that the Story to be more true than just 50/50

It is rather far fetched however to assume that forces abandoning equipment willy nilly take the time to strip out ERA blocks for some rough idea of a demoralization effect.

I never argued that it was the russian to change the era block, maybe you're answering in the wrong comment thread?

You know, a theme of From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne is the longstanding rivalry between weapon makers and armor makers. 150 years after it was written, that bit still seems to hold true.