I also recall a day when the US was worried that the MiG-29 was a serious, perhaps impressive threat -- that clearly was a joke -- both in terms of its success record, and the analysis results when they actually flew some German ones...

To be sure, "past success, doesn't guarantee future results", but history seems to bear out that taking Russian government commentaries with a significant dose of salt is usually much more accurate than believing their press releases...

(Just one guy's opinion)

Regards,
4 ~S!~