The Russian army has had to resort to its old arsenal of Soviet weapons after the enormous losses it has suffered in this context since the beginning of the conflict. “Losses of Russian military equipment in Ukraine continue to increase. Russia has lost more than 3,600 main battle tanks and almost 8,000 armored vehicles since February 2022,” says British Military Intelligence in an assessment of the conflict.
In this sense, the open source analysis website Oryx states that Russian forces have lost about 3,660 battle tanks and 8,900 combat vehicles infantry and armored personnel carriers.
If we move to the figures carried by the Ukrainian army [que probablemente hayan sido infladas o exageradas] these increase significantly, increasing at 9,600 main battle tanks and 19,900 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.
Given this situation, it is not surprising that the Russian army has decided to resort to old obsolete vehicles and Soviet weapons, including T-54/55 battle tanks, Degtyaryov heavy machine guns, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles from the 1950s and 1960s.
“This has led to dependence on obsolete and poorly maintained equipment of Soviet-era strategic storage depots. “Armored equipment is being taken out of storage, upgraded where possible and sent to the front line,” notes British Military Intelligence.
The images viewed by the British Army “have confirmed a large reduction in armored vehicles stored at the Arsenyev, Buy and Ulan-Ude tank storage bases from 2022”, as they defend.
According to the newspaper , The losses have been so high that some units have even been almost completely destroyed, losing almost 80% of their personnel. This represents great damage, not only due to the lack of personnel, but also because of the preparation time required to train these special devices and in recreating its strategic capacity and operations.
