The most spectacular Russian military failures of all time

Events of 2016 have brought the sheer might of the Russian military into sharp focus.

The country's involvement in bombing campaigns over the Syrian capital of Aleppo caused international outrage, and American intelligence agencies now believe that Russian military hackers influenced the US election in Donald Trump's favour by releasing emails which were damaging to his rival Hillary Clinton.

For all their controversy, both cases have been strategically successful for Russia, with Aleppo now conquered by Russian-backed government forces, and Donald Trump installed as America's president-elect.

The country's military history is, however, dotted with a number of significant failures as well as successes. The following is a collection of some of the most ambitious military projects that resulted in spectacular failures.

* Thomas Hirst contributed the reporting to an earlier version of this article.