[Franek Grabowski]

This is purely political bias of the author. Of course Soviet 'modern' designs were not as obsolescent as eg. Gladiator but they were not in in the class of Western aircraft of the period. One of the tricks is to compare aircraft of different periods. Yak-1 or LaGG-3 went into production at the end of 1940, so they should be rather compared to such aircraft like Mustang, Airacobra, possibly Fw 190. Also, Spitfire Vs were markedly superior to Soviet designs, as testified by successes of 57 GvIAP on Kuban in 1943.