Narrator: Western analysts say
the Russian military is falling short.
We went through dozens of videos from the first six weeks
of the war in Ukraine to see what they show.
And we saw evidence of expired food rations,
aging military vehicles, tanks without fuel,
and plenty of other surprising details to support that.
The expectation was that the Russian military
would do quite well, and yet so far, they don't seem
to be doing very well at either the tactical
or the operational level.
Narrator: Most Russian forces have retreated
from Kyiv, but some Western powers are still wary
of what Putin has planned.
Mark: Russia remains a premier nuclear power.
Narrator: So where are the Russians falling short?
And what new information have we really learned
about their military?
Mark Cancian is a retired Marine Corps colonel
and an expert in military operations
who's been studying Russia's military since the Cold War.
Russia has been involved in several conflicts
in the past decade that made its military look powerful
and efficient, as well as ruthless.
Narrator: This time, things haven't gone as Mark expected.
The Russians have been conducting this operation
on a shoestring.
In 2014, when the Russians took over Crimea,
they did that swiftly and quite effectively.
In their operations in Syria,
they were brutal but effective also.
So we expected that their operations
in Ukraine would be similarly effective.
Narrator: From 2015 to 2020, Russia spent an average
of $65 billion annually on its military.
In comparison, the United States spent
more than 10 times as much during the same period.
The Kremlin is first focusing on heavy artillery
to shatter cities and break resolve.
One thing they're emphasizing — missiles.
The Iskander missile, capable of carrying
both nuclear and conventional warheads.
They've been using it to attack
deep targets in Ukraine.
It has high precision.
Narrator: Russia said it had 136 of these types
of missiles in 2019.
Mark: They have a limited inventory.
What it indicates is that the Russians are using all
of their capabilities in this conflict,
even a relatively scarce
and important capability like Iskanders.
Narrator: We also asked Mark
about Russia's cruise missile inventory.
The Russian cruise missile inventory
tends to be on the older side.
The Russians don't have a whole lot of them.
Narrator: This is a 3M-54 Kalibr,
which gets launched from sea to land.
Mark: Cruise missiles fly like unpiloted aircraft
and are typically precision-guided.
Narrator: This missile landed at a bus terminal in Kyiv.
Mark says the model came out in the 1990s
and has been continuously updated.
But this armored vehicle he can identify right away.
It was found just a few miles from Kyiv.
Mark: This is the Gvozdika self-propelled artillery.
It looks like a tank. It's not.
Narrator: One of the main differences is that
this has bigger guns and can shoot
at higher angles than a tank.
This rocket system, called Grad,
was first developed in the 1960s.
It fires 40 rockets up to 25 miles.
These are unguided.
They can be very effective against troops,
but they're also very dangerous for civilians,
because they spread out, and they're not very accurate.
It's certainly one reason why you're seeing
civilian facilities being hit.
Narrator: It's hard to know which weapons
caused which damage, but scenes like this show
that civilian targets across Ukraine
have been totally destroyed.
We've learned the Russians have a wide variety of drones,
including this one, a Russian Orion drone.
Mark: This appears to be a reconnaissance drone.
It seems that the drone is locating the target
and another shooter is attacking.
And that would be tremendously helpful for the Russians,
because they have not been very good
at reconnaissance so far.
They've been frequently ambushed and surprised.
Narrator: But Russia does have about 300 modern
combat aircraft positioned within range of Ukraine,
including the SU-34, with its double tail
that helps it change direction at high angles.
Russia deployed it in the northeast of Ukraine.
Mark: It's a relatively modern aircraft.
It can be a fighter. It can also drop bombs.
Narrator: The SU-24, on the other hand, is old.
Mark: The SU-24, it's a swing-wing fighter bomber.
It can fly low, it can fly fast.
And interestingly, it's used
by both the Ukrainians and the Russians.
And you can tell that it's a SU-24
because it has the single tail.
Narrator: But experts say Russia has limited quantities
of precision-guided air weapons.
Years of combat operations in Syria have depleted
their stockpile and may mean that most aircraft have
only unguided bombs and rockets.
Another reason why the Russian air force has fallen behind
is because their pilots have
about 120 hours of flying practice a year,
a lot less than their Western counterparts.
So experts say they are struggling
to use their complex aircraft in a conflict zone.
But Russia says it deployed
the new Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile for the first time
in this war when it blew up a big underground
arms depot in western Ukraine.
The Russians claim the Kinzhal can hit a target
up to 1,200 miles away and that it's hypersonic,
which means it can fly at five times the speed of sound.
It's also capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
And while Russia has not used nuclear weapons,
it has carried out drills with its nuclear forces,
like the one seen here in video released
by the Russian Defense Ministry days before the invasion.
Mark says there's more to come from Putin's army.
They're pulling in additional forces.
We're also seeing more air activity, more drone activity.
Narrator: But, the Russian military has some issues.
Soldiers have been leaving significant resources
behind on the battlefield.
Take supplies, for example.
Here, Ukrainian soldiers found a field full
of abandoned Russian tanks.
And in this video posted to Twitter,
we see Ukrainian farmers towing Russian armored vehicles.
Same thing here.
Why were they abandoned?
Mark: It's almost certain that they ran out of gas.
If they'd been captured, you know,
they probably would have shown some damage.
But we, on most of them, we don't see that.
Narrator: They're also using unencrypted communications
like smartphones and push-to-talk radios.
And tree branches to conceal their vehicles,
like in this photo posted to Twitter
by Ukraine Weapons Tracker.
Another issue for the Russian military?
Food.
Look at these expiration dates.
Mark: These rations expired in 2015.
Narrator: Two-thirds of enlisted
Russian troops are volunteers,
and the other third are conscripts,
which means they were forced to enlist.
Russia requires all male citizens
between the ages of 18 to 27 to register for conscription.
But experts say conscripts often have
poor training and low morale.
There have been multiple reports
that Russian soldiers have refused to follow orders
and even walked away from their units.
So high-ranking officers moved to the front lines instead
and were exposed to attacks.
So far, Ukraine says it's killed
at least six Russian major generals,
an unusually high total for senior officers.
The Kremlin has acknowledged only three of their deaths.
Still, Russia is a much bigger force.
It has 850,000 total active-duty troops.
That's four times as many as Ukraine,
which has approximately 200,000.
We've also learned about the message
the Russian military is sending
to its own citizens tied to the symbols
that show up in these videos released
by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
These are ZiLs, standard heavy trucks
the military has used since the Soviet era.
What sticks out here are the Z's on the trucks.
Mark: Z seems to be the most common,
but we've also seen V and a couple of other symbols.
So the Ukrainians say they designate
who the vehicle belongs to or where it comes from.
What is interesting is that the Z has been taken up
by Russians to show support for the war,
and people sporting Z's and Z's appearing
in a variety of venues.
Narrator: Like this image of a Russian gymnast
sporting a Z on his chest.
I think you're probably going to see more of it
as the the Russian government emphasizes
the nationalist elements of the conflict.
The Russians have said that it stands for victory.
Narrator: And Soviet flags are making a comeback.
It hearkens back to the days of the Red Army,
which was much larger and victorious
in the Second World War, what the Russians called
the Great Patriotic War.
It also hearkens back to when Russia was
a superpower and resonates with Putin, who looks back
on those days with nostalgia.
Narrator: But in this war,
the losses are quickly racking up.
Ukraine claims to have killed more than 15,000 soldiers.
But as of March 25, Russia had admitted
to losing only 1,300 troops.