On February 24, 2022, in a furious speech that will go down in history, Vladimir Putin announced the start of a “special military operation” in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. More than two years later, and despite the imbalance of power between Kiev and Moscow or the campaigns orchestrated by the Kremlin (for example, the attack on Kharkiv a few months ago), one thing is clear: the “special operation” turned out to be an offensive, a war of attrition that threatens to consolidate.

As the months pass and nearly 900 days of Russian occupation follow, another reality has become increasingly apparent: The conflict is sapping one of the Kremlin’s greatest assets, its Soviet-era arsenal.

Legacy of the USSRWhile Russia has demonstrated a remarkable ability to mobilize its troops despite Western sanctions and has managed to greatly increase its production of ammunition, missiles, and drones, one of the Kremlin’s greatest cushions has been the Soviet arsenal.

The European Security and Defence (ESD) website had already published in November 2023 a statement describing how Russia was using Soviet-era tanks and armoured vehicles stored at the Buryatia base. It specifically mentioned the use of T-54/55 tanks produced between the mid-1940s and the late 1970s.

Looking at the gunsmithThe country continued to produce and update variants such as the T-72, T-80 or T-90, but ESD assures that the Russian defense industry “could not keep up with the pace” of production and had no other choice but to resort to older versions of the T-54/55 or T-62. A similar situation will occur with armored vehicles used for transporting troops, infantry fighting vehicles or howitzers from the 1940s, and naval guns from the 50s.

“In a situation where the Russian defense industry has no more than twenty new tanks of various modifications per month, old materials had to be taken from stocks to fill the demand gap. And finally, it came to him. Let’s look at tanks produced more than 60 years ago – says ESD – the front lines of Russia (and indeed Ukraine) are filled with various types of weapons, from old equipment to more or less modern ones.

…And on the horizon of 2025. ESD is not the only one paying attention to how the Kremlin uses its weapons stockpile. At the beginning of the year, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) published a report that put forward another, equally interesting idea: although the country under Vladimir Putin has managed to provide a significant boost to its defense industry, due to the exponential increase in production of about 1,500 tanks and 3,000 armored fighting vehicles and missiles per year, RUSI technicians primarily value “significant limitations” related to the “longevity and reliability” of its production.

“For example, about 80% of tanks and other armored fighting vehicles are not new production, but have been refurbished and modernized from Russia’s war stocks. The number of systems in storage means that Russia could have continuous production until 2024, but you would start new production.” You will see vehicles needing more extensive refurbishment by 2025, and by 2026 you will have used up most of the existing stock.

Not exactly new supplements. The last one, which shows the extent to which Soviet reserves provided Russia with oxygen in Ukraine, is as follows: Economistpublished a recent history with a headline that left little room for interpretation: “Russia’s vast Soviet-era weapons reserves are running out.”

Quoting the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the British weekly magazine provides an important piece of information about the 1,530 tanks that Moscow boasts of delivering by 2023: the vast majority of them, almost 85%, will not be new machines fresh from the war, but old T-72s, T-62s and even some old T-55s taken out of storage for cleaning and updating.

How much can Russia produce? To understand how much the Politburo legacy has eased Russia’s situation, another question must first be clarified: how many tanks does Russia have the capacity to assemble? The IISS estimates that around 90 modern T-90MS could be produced by 2024, but there are some nuances. One of its analysts, Michael Gjerstad, notes that most of these models will actually be updates to older versions of the T-90, and that production of new T-90Ms in 2024 may not exceed 28.

When Ukrainian troops captured and began examining a supposedly new T-90m unit last year, they discovered that the weapon had been produced more than 30 years ago, in 1992. Some estimates in Ukraine suggest that the proportion of genuinely new tanks being produced at the factory is much lower than that of vehicles leaving reserves and storage bases.

The problem of losses and sanctionsThe picture is completed by two other equally important brushstrokes. The first concerns the material loss suffered by Russia. Economist He claims that in the first 24 months of the war, the Kremlin lost 3,000 tanks and 5,000 armored vehicles of various types. In fact, to be more precise, Oryx claims to have vivid evidence that 3,235 tanks were lost.

The extent to which this figure corresponds to reality remains a question. Some recall that not all losses were documented, so the real figure could be “significantly higher,” but ESD also recalls that there was damaged, abandoned or captured equipment that could be repaired and returned to service.

Another important point is that Western sanctions on Russia may be making it harder for Russia to produce tanks. Although everything seems to indicate that Moscow has managed to bypass at least some of these vetoes with the help of intermediary allies, there are experts who warn that difficulties in procuring components are already hurting the Kremlin, which has had to exhaust its stocks prematurely and see its old supply chain affected.

Images | Dmitriy Fomin (Flickr) and Arndt Torick (Flickr)

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