Missing the mark: Why Putin’s “wonder weapons” only make Russia less secure

Since late October 2025, Vladimir Putin has been regularly reporting (1, 2, 3) on Russia’s successful development of state-of-the-art weapons that, he says, are unrivaled in their technical and tactical characteristics. If one were to believe Putin’s words, Russia’s achievements in weaponry would indeed be staggering:

• A task once considered “unattainable in the near historical future” has been accomplished.
• “Security and strategic parity have been ensured for decades ahead — one can confidently say for the entire 21st century.”
• The innovations will find application in the country's “national economy,” the lunar program, Arctic exploration, the electronics industry, and supercomputer development.
• “We have accumulated a true treasure trove of new materials, technologies, unmanned systems, software, and digital solutions and components.”

All these achievements were named in reference to the Burevestnik missile and the Poseidon underwater vehicle projects. Alongside them, Putin regularly mentions other “unparalleled” weapons. At an expanded meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry board in December 2025, he announced the deployment of the Oreshnik mobile ground-based missile system on combat duty and talked up a weapon that “no one else in the world possesses” — the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle.

The first time Putin spoke about Russia’s assortment of new “wonder weapons” was in 2018, during an address to the Federal Assembly. He accompanied his speech with animated clips depicting the potential use of the missiles while hinting that he was willing to negotiate with Russia’s Western partners on an “updated, forward-looking system of international security and sustainable civilization development.”

Since then, Burevestnik, Poseidon, and Avangard, as well as the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile and the air- and sea-launched hypersonic missiles Kinzhal and Zircon, have consistently served as instruments of Kremlin power. During the war in Ukraine, the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile was added to Putin’s arsenal of “wonder weapons.”