Russia. Experts: Russians are starting to run out of tanks and combat vehicles, as well as components for their construction and repair

“Despite talk of Russia becoming a war economy, spending around 8% of its GDP on military spending, it is only able to replace its shocking losses in tanks, armoured infantry vehicles and artillery by drawing from storage and replenishing stockpiles built up during Soviet times. These stockpiles are huge, but they are not infinite,” the British weekly The Economist pointed out.

The weekly cited intelligence estimates according to which during the first two years of the war Russia lost about 3,000 tanks and 5,000 other armored vehicles. He quotes Aleksander Golec, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for East European Studies, who said that Vladimir Putin owes much to the Soviet leaders, because before its fall, the Soviet Union had as many armoured vehicles as the rest of the world combined.

As The Economist noted, when in December 2023 the then Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu boasted that 1,530 tanks had been delivered during the year, he did not say that almost 85 percent of them, according to the assessment of the London think tank IISS, were old machines (mainly T-72s, T-62s, and even some T-55s from the period just after World War II) that had been pulled from storage and refurbished.

Since the invasion began Ukraine Russia has sent about 175 relatively modern T-90M tanks to the front line. According to IISS, production this year could approach 90, but according to IISS analyst Michael Gjerstad, most T-90Ms are actually upgrades of older T-90As, and production of new T-90Ms this year will not exceed 28 units.

Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russian military capabilities at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), has estimated that Russia can build only 30 completely new tanks per year. When the Ukrainians allegedly captured a new T-90M tank last year, it turned out that its gun was made in 1992.

According to Luzin, Russia’s ability to build new tanks or IFVs, or even to refurbish old ones, is hampered by the difficulty of obtaining components. Stockpiles of tank components that were intended for use in 2025 before the war have already been depleted, and key equipment, such as diesel fuel heaters, high-voltage electrical systems and infrared thermal imaging for target identification, that were previously imported from Europe, are now unavailable due to sanctions.

The lack of high-quality ball bearings is also a limitation. Chinese alternatives are sometimes available, but are said to fall short of the old quality standards.

Another major problem is the production of artillery barrels. For now, thanks to North Korea's help, Russia appears to have enough shells, probably around 3 million this year – enough to have had an advantage over the Ukrainians by at least 5:1 until recently.

A side effect of such a high rate of fire, however, is barrel wear. In some areas where fighting takes place, howitzer barrels need to be replaced after just a few months.

Meanwhile, Luzin said, only two factories in Russia have the advanced Austrian rotary forging machines (the last one was imported in 2017) needed to make barrels. Each can only produce about 100 barrels a year, while thousands are needed.

The biggest problem, however, remains tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which are crucial to any large-scale offensive ground operations. The IISS estimated that in February Russia may have had some 3,200 tanks in storage that it could use, but Gjerstad said up to 70 percent of them “haven't moved an inch since the beginning of the war.”

A large portion of the T-72s have been in storage since the early 1990s and are likely in very poor condition. Gjerstad estimated that if nothing changes, Russian forces may be forced to adjust to a much more defensive posture by the end of the year, or even the end of summer.