Already a subscriber?For a long time, it seemed that a war of attrition between Ukraine and a Russia with five times its population could only end one way.
According to most intelligence estimates, after the first two years of the war Russia had lost about 3000 tanks and 5000 other armoured vehicles.Oryx, a Dutch open-source intelligence site, puts the number of Russian tank losses for which it has either photographic or video evidence at 3235, but suggests the actual number is “significantly higher”.
However, IISS analyst Michael Gjerstad argues that most of the T-90ms are actually upgrades of older T-90as. As those numbers dwindle, production of newly built T-90ms this year might be no more than 28. Furthermore, the old Soviet armaments supply chain no longer exists. Ukraine, Georgia and East Germany were all important centres of weapons and components manufacture. Ironically, Kharkiv was the main producer of turrets for T-72 tanks.
Yet, says Luzin, there are only two factories that have the sophisticated Austrian-made rotary forging machines needed to make the barrels.