Russia curtails armoured vehicle use as reserves wane
Russia is reducing its use of armoured vehicles in Ukraine due to shrinking Soviet-era reserves. According to ISW, these resources will be depleted by the end of 2026 at the current rate of losses.
The Russian armed forces in Ukraine are limiting the use of armoured vehicles to conserve equipment given the diminishing Soviet-era reserves. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russians may deplete these resources at the current rate of losses by the end of 2026.
Ukrainian military sources have noted that Russians are using fewer armoured vehicles and conducting fewer mechanized attacks toward the city of Kurakhove. This is because the invading troops lost many units of this equipment in October and November 2024, ISW reported.
Russian forces have switched to using infantry to assault this front section. Armoured vehicles are used solely as fire support for infantry attacks, highlighted the Institute, citing sources in the Ukrainian army.
The state of Russian reserves
The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) reported in February 2024 that Russia could likely sustain such a high level of armoured vehicle losses for two or three years, at most until early 2027, mainly due to the refurbishment of vehicles from Soviet-era storage.
Sources analyzing satellite images provided an updated assessment at the end of December last year regarding the state of Russian tank and armoured vehicle storage. According to these reports, the Russian army holds 47% of its pre-war tank reserves and 52% of its combat vehicle reserves, ISW noted.
It seems increasingly unrealistic that the Russian military will be able to maintain the current annual loss rate of nearly 9,000 armoured vehicles until 2025. This rate is almost three times higher than the annual loss rate in the first two years of the war, suggesting that the IISS estimates from 2024 are already outdated, summarized the Washington think tank.
Satellite images show that equipment resources stored in places like Bui in the Kostroma region have significantly decreased. As a result, Russians are forced to use increasingly older equipment and improvised solutions. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are trying to make use of captured equipment.
In a recent post on X, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence reported that, according to their accounts, over 6,000 Russian tanks have been eliminated since the beginning of the war.
