"As evidence of the State Armament Programme’s implementation until 2015 showed, the Russian defence industry still had not made the leap from ‘dumb-iron’ equipment to twenty-first-century sophistication.
"Russia’s intervention in Syria is a case in point. As [Russian defense analyst and director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies] Ruslan Pukhov argued, the performance of the Russian Air Force in Syria was impressive if compared to the 2008 war with Georgia, where it lost seven aircraft in blue-on-blue incidents within a matter of four days. From an international perspective, however, it’s technological level now matches at best that of the US air force during the 1991 Gulf War a quarter of a century ago. Weaknesses have been visible in Syria, particularly in terms of the sophistication of precision-guided munitions, a shortage of targeting systems, deficiencies in aerial reconnaissance capabilities, and a lack of long-range UAVs and attack drones."
--Bettina Renz, Russia's Military Revival 2018, page 80
"As evidence of the State Armament Programme’s implementation until 2015 showed, the Russian defence industry still had not made the leap from ‘dumb-iron’ equipment to twenty-first-century sophistication.
"Russia’s intervention in Syria is a case in point. As [Russian defense analyst and director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies] Ruslan Pukhov argued, the performance of the Russian Air Force in Syria was impressive if compared to the 2008 war with Georgia, where it lost seven aircraft in blue-on-blue incidents within a matter of four days. From an international perspective, however, it’s technological level now matches at best that of the US air force during the 1991 Gulf War a quarter of a century ago. Weaknesses have been visible in Syria, particularly in terms of the sophistication of precision-guided munitions, a shortage of targeting systems, deficiencies in aerial reconnaissance capabilities, and a lack of long-range UAVs and attack drones." --Bettina Renz, Russia's Military Revival 2018, page 80