Russia could run out of tanks in the Ukraine war

Summary and key points: The Russian military’s tank reserves, which have been significantly decimated since the beginning of the Ukraine war, could be running out.

– Although the Kremlin has been stockpiling military equipment since the Cold War, reports suggest that stockpiles are dwindling faster than they can be replenished. Analysis of satellite imagery and recent reports suggest a significant reduction in Russian tank numbers, with older models such as the T-62 and T-54/55 being reactivated to make up for losses.

– With production rates lagging behind losses, it seems increasingly unlikely that Russia will be able to restore its tank fleet to pre-war levels any time soon.

Will Russia run out of tanks?

Russia is a huge country, but its resources are not infinite. The Kremlin has essentially been “hoarding” military equipment since the Cold War, but now there are reports that the Russian military may be running out of tanks – something that seemed unimaginable before Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly two and a half years ago.

Writing for Forbes.com in April, David Axe said that while Russia was fully mobilized “politically, industrially and militarily,” that mobilization had exhausted resources faster than the Kremlin could replenish its supplies.

Newsweekciting the German newspaper Southgerman newspaper (SZ) also reported that Russia may have thousands fewer armored fighting vehicles, including tanks, than before the war. SZ had trained an AI model to carefully examine satellite images of 87 military sites in Russia, including 16 bases that housed tanks, artillery systems, and other vehicles. The AI ​​was able to count the number of tanks before the war and compare them with data from the previous 52 months. The data suggested that the Kremlin had lost a significant number of tanks.

One depot reportedly housed 857 tanks in April 2021, but by October 2022 the number of tanks had fallen by half – the depot is now almost empty.

Indeed, Ukraine has also lost a significant number of tanks and other vehicles, but Western support has helped Kyiv to become stronger, while Russia may continue to weaken. Moreover, NATO has steadily increased its military in response to Russian aggression, and the war that triggered this military buildup has left Russia severely weakened.

These old vehicles cannot be replaced in the Ukraine war

Kiev claims that Moscow lost more than 8,000 tanks by the end of last month – but this figure cannot be independently verified. What is absolutely true, however, is that Russia will at least be able to replace the lost T-90s and other modern vehicles over time.

Of course, time is not on Russia’s side at the moment, but the fact is that the Kremlin may never restore its huge tank fleet to pre-war levels. As mentioned above, the Kremlin followed a policy of sending older tanks to storage – which, at least on paper, increased the number of tanks Moscow had in its arsenals.

In order to replenish the armed forces, after the destruction of modern tanks, older platforms such as the T-62 and even older tanks of the T-54/55 series were recalled from storage and sent to the front. Since these tanks are lost, they will never return to the warehouses. In addition, Russia no longer produces tanks on the scale that the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.

The T-54/55 was the most produced tank of all time – the Soviet Union produced more than 35,000 of them in total. Although not all of them survived, Russia inherited at least 3,000 of them after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By comparison, only around 4,000 T-90 battle tanks were produced for the Russian military.

In other words, Russia had a huge reserve of tanks before the war, thanks to Cold War-era vehicles, but these have now been depleted and will not be replenished for decades, if ever. Eventually, everything will be used up, even Russian tanks.

Author’s experience and expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a writer from Michigan. He has published over 3,200 articles for more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites in his twenty-year career as a journalist. He writes regularly about military equipment, weapons history, cybersecurity, politics and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Author for Forbes and Clearance jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciuYou can send an email to the author: (email protected).

All images are Creative Commons or Shutterstock.

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