I think there are several things to unpack here. Yes, the West has given smaller quantities then everything Russia owns. On the other hand much if not most of what Russia owns is in poor condition rotting in a field somewhere. Some of that has been restored and sent to war, but there is much that hasn't. On the flip side the west has given Ukraine thousands of armored vehicles, and by my estimate over a thousand artillery pieces of all types. The quantities of western military aid to Ukraine aren't small. In point of fact they're absolutely massive. And much of it isn't being covered in detail. Romanian kit for example ended up in Ukraine. The quantities are relatively small but they're not 0. Yet I haven't seen any official source cover the quantities of that aid.
As for quality, the two most numerous western armored vehicles provided to Ukraine are BMP-1s and M113s... quality? Pre-war in Russia the BMP-1 was exceedingly rare (iirc only two brigades in the Far East were using those, and even then some were upgraded BMP-1AMs). Russia continues to produce new BMP-3s to the tune of hundreds per year, and upgrade BMP-2s to the BMP-2M standard with a modern combat module. It's true Russia has also pulled BMP-1s from storage, but overall I don't think we can claim Ukraine's ground forces have gotten better quality kit from the west. Russia's BMP-3s production over the past 2 years is definitely greater, by itself, then just then Bradleys and Marders Ukraine received, two
relatively modern IFVs.
Ukrainian airpower has had relatively little effect on the battlefield. While Ukraine has managed to launch some highly visible symbolic strikes, they mostly do little to move the front line in one direction or another. Ukrainian HIMARS strikes had a far greater effect in that regard. Lobbing S-5/8 rocket pods at low altitude is essentially a waste of fuel and munitions for both sides.
This is not a surprise. The PzH2000 and Caesar are drastically newer then the 2S1 and 2S3s Ukraine has. Same for the M777s compared to the common D-20 in Ukrainian service. However these systems represent a minority of western military aid. Ukraine received Polish 2S1s, Finnish Giatsint-B, Croatian M46s, Polish Grads, Czech Vampirs, the list goes on and on, to include US WW2 era M101 howitzers, no doubt of excellent quality, but hardly superior to even a Soviet 2S3 or 2S19. The primary artillery advantage Ukraine has comes from the long range of the small number of modern western guns coupled with modern guided shells for them that comfortably outrange Russia's Krasnopol' family. These, coupled with HIMARS/M270s allow Ukraine to outperform Russia in counter-battery fires, but only 1) while the relatively modern western guns are available and in good working order, 2) while the better modern 155mm shells are available and 3) this was only consistently the case until mass deployment of Lancets, which evened the playing field quite a bit. You'll note that Krab and M109 howitzers don't enjoy the same advantage over their Russian counterparts that the more modern guns do. And even the M777s are likely over 50% gone at this point (
Потери 155-мм гаубиц M777 ВСУ).
Yes Russian official claims should at best be examined very carefully and only in light of supporting evidence from non-official sources. Personally I've been ignoring them and advise anyone who isn't willing to put in hours of work separating truth from fiction to do the same.
On the whole I would say this. When Ukraine receives modern western kit that offers a substantial technological advantage and is relevant to this conflict it can get a qualitative edge over Russia. However a typical Ukrainian territorial defense formation, many of which are on the front lines right now, is drastically outmatched by a typical Russian line Motor-Rifles unit. Many Ukrainian formations are not mechanized at all, relying on unarmored transport. And when faced with the prospect of riding to the front in a mix of pickups, vans, and cargo trucks, suddenly an MT-LB starts to look good, and a BTR-82A like a spaceship. Ukraine's best are a match, and in some areas like artillery more then a match for Russia's best. But the average level of Ukrainian forces in my estimate is substantially worse. Note that while Ukraine has received thousands of pieces of kit, Oryx before quitting his work documented over 5k pieces of equipment lost too. I suspect Ukraine has lost about as much kit as it has received from the west (+/- of course). Meanwhile the size of the Ukrainian military has quadrupled from ~250k to 1.1 million according to the latest reports. And Ukraine had trouble kitting out their troops before the war with some infantry brigades having incomplete artillery parks and also riding unarmored vehicles. This problem can only be worse now. Ukrainian elite forces "own the night" because they all have NVGs, outgun the MT-LBs so ubiquitous in Russian service with their Bradleys, and can rely on decent artillery support from modern western SP howtizers. The average Ukrainian soldier I suspect never gets to touch an NVG, has unarmored transport if any, and is often short on even basic crew served weapons nevermind artillery support.
To be clear what I write in this last paragraph is the impression I have gotten from reviewing buckets of footage, reading much on social media including Ukrainian sources, and putting together some of the numbers mentioned above. Anyone is welcome to draw their own conclusions, these are mine.
Yes. I will do a post about it later tonight provided nothing comes up. As far as I can tell Ukraine tossed an MLRS packet into the middle of Belgorod with no particular target in mind.