![]() ![]() ![]() The gap, between Russian tank losses and the production or restoration of fresh tanks, isn’t insurmountable. Russian industry in the last year or so also patched up a few hundred 1970s-vintage T-62s, but these tanks clearly were an expedient-and have made exactly one notable contribution to the war effort: providing Ukraine with captured hulls its technicians can modify into engineering vehicles. Russia went to war with 2,500 tanks, lost 1,600 in the first year and, over the same span of time, might have built or repaired around 850. A Russian source told Novaya Gazeta that Uralvagonzavod and Siberia-based Omsktransmash can restore 600 old tanks a year on top of the 250 new T-72s and T-90s Uralvagonzavod can build.ĭo the math. So in fact, Russia might have as few as 3,800 repairable tanks in reserve. There also are a couple hundred new-ish T-90s in storage, most of which should be in reasonably good condition. Maybe half the 3,000 T-80s realistically can be restored. The open-source analyst assumed just a third of the 6,900 stored T-72s are recoverable. The problem is, most of those tanks are lined up tread-to-tread in outdoor parks, where they’ve been exposed to rain and cycles of cold and hot that have rusted metal, rotted rubber and degraded sensitive optics. But one open-source analyst counted 10,000 T-72s, T-80 and T-90s in the war reserve. Novaya Gazeta estimated there are 8,000 “preserved” tanks. It’s a matter of intensive debate just how many recoverable tanks Russia has in storage.
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