Forbes calculated the stocks of tanks and combat vehicles in the Russian army
The Russian industry produces 500-600 new tanks annually, but the Russians lose more than a thousand tanks and about 2,000 combat vehicles a year.
According to the newspaper, over 26 months of heavy fighting, the Russian military has lost 15,300 tanks, combat vehicles, howitzers and other weapons in Ukraine, as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
And yet there are more Russian forces in Ukraine than ever before.
In fact, the Russian army is now 15% larger than at the beginning of the invasion. “Over the past year, Russia has increased the number of its troops on the front line from 360,000 to 470,000,” said U.S. Army General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s top commander.
But as Forbes notes, Russian soldiers are dying as fast as they arrive in Ukraine. In a recent study, the Estonian Ministry of Defense concluded that killing 100,000 Russians this year would cause irreparable damage, if not failure, to the Kremlin’s mobilization efforts.
Russia is reportedly making up for the lack of equipment with Soviet equipment from the 1970s, and in some cases even from the 60s or 50s. But these old cars have a limited lifespan.
The latest forecasts suggest that by mid-2025 there will be no more old tanks and combat vehicles in stock.
According to Forbes, evidence of the shortage is already evident: Russian troops are traveling to battle in unarmored cargo trucks and even in open-top golf carts that the Kremlin purchased from a Chinese company.
NATO names Ukraine’s most effective weapon for destroying Russian tanks
A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have recently destroyed 66% of Russian tanks using cheap FPV drones.
Although the large-scale losses of Russians due to drones can be considered a success for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it also shows that Ukrainian soldiers currently have no alternative.
Ukraine has long faced a serious shortage of artillery shells and other weapons because many of its allies have been slowing down the supply process.
To compensate for this, Ukrainian forces have been using FPV drones for a number of tasks during the war, including surveillance and attacks on enemy positions. Some drones are equipped with explosives and are remotely controlled via a video screen,” Foreign Policy notes.
