Satellite data suggests Russia may be running out of tanks

Russia has suffered heavy tank losses since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine more than two years ago and may have only a few thousand armored fighting vehicles left, an analysis of satellite imagery using artificial intelligence (AI) suggests.

German newspaper Southgerman newspaper (SZ) has trained an AI model to examine satellite images of 87 Russian military sites – including 16 bases where tanks, artillery vehicles and armored personnel carriers are stored.

The AI ​​model counted the number of tanks at these key locations from the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to the present day to determine the extent of the country’s tank losses in the war.

One of those bases, the Army’s 111th Central Tank Reserve Base in southeastern Russia, which housed 857 tanks in April 2021, is now almost empty, satellite images show. Just months after the war began, in October 2022, Russia had lost nearly half of those tanks, the newspaper noted. Analysis of other military sites painted a similar picture. SZ said.

Newsweek could not independently verify the extent of Russian tank losses and has asked the Russian Defense Ministry for a comment by email.

Michael Gjerstad is a research analyst for defence and military analysis at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He said SZ He estimates that Russia “still has around 3,200 tanks in stock.”

“But the vast majority of them are in poor condition and require significant repairs,” Gjerstad said.

According to publicly available data, both Moscow and Kiev have suffered significant tank losses so far in the war.

Dutch open-source intelligence and defense analysis website Oryx has visually confirmed that since the start of the all-out war in Ukraine, 2,144 Russian tanks have been destroyed, 159 damaged, 352 abandoned and 518 captured.

Oryx added that since the start of the war, 581 Ukrainian tanks have been destroyed, 72 of them damaged, 67 abandoned and 134 captured.

On Thursday, the Kiev military said Moscow had lost 8,042 tanks since the start of the large-scale invasion of Russia, including three in the last 24 hours. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces publishes figures on Russian troop and equipment losses as part of its daily war report. Newsweek could not independently verify the figures from Kyiv.

Estimates of casualties and equipment losses in the war vary, with Ukraine’s figures generally higher than those of its Western allies. Moscow rarely discloses information on the number of casualties or equipment losses it has suffered in the war.

Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow at the international think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, said SZ He is convinced that Russia is “losing far more equipment than it can replace and that supplies are running low.”

“That is why it is important for Ukraine to inflict such high material losses on the Russians that the situation will eventually become critical for them,” said Gressel.

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