It reminds me this story, which was told to me as a true story, but I wouldn't bet too much on that. A soviet bomber gets lost and finds itself over western germany. It has to land on a military airport, which pilots jovially invite the soviet pilots for a drink. While they are drinking, intelligence officers take pictures of the plane, and are laughing at antiquated soviet technology, using bulbs while the US was we…
There are EMP shielding techniques for solid state systems. The reality is the Soviets were very behind technologically in many areas compared to the west. A good example is the bulbous nature of their spacecraft. They simply didn't have the metalworking to make square cutouts and square windows that didn't eventually fail, so everything was round like a boat or a submarine design. Its fairly ahistoric to pretend thi…
USSR (Russia) and USA both export junk versions of their technology to their clients, so I can't agree with your conclusion. Actual direct confrontations between the USSR and USA (MiGs in Korea and Vietnam) were on a much more even footing.
I think there are strengths to both approaches. The low-tech and rugged designs of many USSR designs have stood the test of time in many cases, most famously in the AK rifles and Soyuz capsules.