 Ukraine conflict exposed truth about Western military equipment. Putin. Ukraine is facing significant battlefield losses, and its counteroffensive has failed to impress the country's foreign backers, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaking during a Defense Ministry board meeting in Moscow, he pointed out that Kiev's forces are having these problems despite receiving high-grade Western military equipment. The myth of the invulnerability of Western military equipment has collapsed, said Putin. Throughout the Ukraine conflict, countries like the US, Germany, France and the UK have supplied Kiev with hundreds of pieces of state-of-the-art Western-made heavy military equipment, such as Leopard 2, Abrams and Challenger tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and more. Russian forces, however, have repeatedly reported either destroying or capturing these hardware, which had often been touted in Western media as superior to anything Russia has to offer. In August, Russia's Defense Ministry even organized an exhibition of captured Western weaponry near Moscow, displaying everything from American M-113 armoured personnel carriers and Swedish CV-90-40s to French-wield AMX-10RCR tanks and Australian Bushmaster armoured vehicles. In total, the exhibition featured over 870 types of armaments seized by Russian forces, including examples of Soviet and Ukrainian-made equipment. In July, President Putin also stated that captured Western weaponry would be reverse engineered to adopt any technology that might turn out to be useful for Russian forces.