When Musk made Falcon 9, Russians said "it is the same as Zenit, only with very old engines". But in reality revealed, that to make re-usability with reactive

When Musk made Falcon 9, Russians said "it is the same as Zenit, only with very old engines". But in reality revealed, that to make re-usability with reactive landing, need extremely wide engine throttling diapason, because starting with very big weight and need max power, and landing empty, so need very little power. Musk solves this with 9 engines, so only 3 used on landing. Russian Zenit is incapable to make so little power to make reactive landing on main engines.