Russia is investing in an arsenal of inflatable decoy military equipment as part of an effort to confuse its enemies.

“If you study the major battles of history, you see that trickery wins every time,” the engineer leading Aleksei A. Komarov told the New York Times in an article published Wednesday. The U.S. military famously produced a “ghost army” of inflatable tanks and vehicles during World War II to successfully confuse the Nazis about where Allied forces intended to land in France on D-Day.