The Potential for Exhaustion of the Tank Reserves of the Occupation Army of Moscovia
*Moscovia is the historical name of the Russian Federation.
We hope that we understand that these calculations are approximate, because there is simply no actual 100% verified information about the condition/quantity/availability unless you are physically in the enemy's enterprises and storage depots and count personally.
The general conclusion of the study — taking into account storage bases, maintaining a steady rate of destruction and production, and in the absence of supplies from outside (North Korea, China), Moscovia has a 1.5–2 year supply of tanks.
The math and thoughts are below.
Storage bases.
By February 24, Military Balance indicates the number of up to 3,330 regular units in service with Moscovia units (in reality, the number is up to 3,000) and 10,250 units in stock. The estimated number at storage bases excludes T-64, T-55 and T-34.
If we include T-64/62 and T-55 tanks, then this number increases to 17500 units (2800 T-54/55; 2500 T-62; 2000 T-64; 7000 T-72; 3000 T-80; 200 T-90). Meaning, together with 3,330 regular tanks in service + 17,500 at storage bases, we get approximately 20,000 potential tanks that Muscovy had globally on February 23.
Yet this number is rather fiction than reality. The problem with speculating on Military Balance's figures is that this organization bases its analysis from the actual number of tanks at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, it only partially takes into account such actual characteristics as: export of Muscovy tanks from warehouses to Africa and the Middle East, export cannibalism, and when two or three tanks were modernized into one unit for export, current cannibalism since 1991 to maintain its own tank fleet, storage quality, and many other factors that influence the current number and usable condition for renovation.
Therefore, more correct data is provided by Osint analyzes based on actual satellite images of storage bases with constant correction in time (updates). It is worth noting that analytics based on open satellite imagery is becoming more accurate right now. Why is it becoming more accurate? The reason is that earlier it was difficult to assume how many tanks were actually in the available 3,500-4,000 covered hangar spaces and whether they were tanks or spaces for other military equipment. Now, it is quite logical to assume that the tanks that were stored in the hangars as the most suitable for restoration during the 2 years of active warfare and deconservation were the first to be removed to compensate the losses suffered by Moscovia during the occupation invasion.
Now they are actively removing tanks that were stored in the public domain. That is why satellite imagery each time should more accurately reflect the actual state of Moscovia's inventory.
To begin with, we need to understand whether the enemy has a problem with tanks at all and whether the enemy is able to cover current losses with actual production.
To start with. The General Staff of Ukraine reports enemy tank losses at 5,093 over 21 months, or, if we take the average data, 242 tanks per month. Oryx has visually confirmed the loss of 2419 tanks over 21 months, or 115 per month. It turns out that for every 2 tanks claimed by the Ukrainian General Staff as “destroyed or damaged” there is only 1 visual confirmation from Oryx.
Taking into account that not all losses are visually recorded and the General Staff of Ukraine can duplicate the destruction of the same unit several times, the data are relatively comparable between visually confirmed destruction and the reported one. Duplication in the calculations of damage from the General Staff of Ukraine can occur for two reasons: several troops may participate in the destruction of an enemy unit and, accordingly, submit a report from several troops to the high command. The second reason is that the Moscovite army has the ability to retrieve some of the damaged tanks, restore them, and send them back into battle. So the unit (tank) is the same, but the damage is counted several times.
But even if we combine and average the data from the General Staff of Ukraine and the visual evidence of destruction from the Oryx team (242+115/2), we get that the enemy is losing about 179 tanks a month for 21 months.
We think it is important to note one more important detail. The visually confirmed Oryx losses of 2419 tanks by Muscovy are only 137 “damaged” and 152 “abandoned”. The rest were either completely destroyed or captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (550 units). Hence, potentially, in the best case scenario, out of the visually confirmed tank losses, Moscovia could have recovered no more than 12% (239) of the total losses recorded. But once again, this is a fantastic option, because it is impossible to pull all the damaged and abandoned tanks for repair. Besides, we can add 142 tanks captured by Moscovia from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Loss of Muscovy tanks, according to visually confirmed Oryx data
Let's proceed further. It's hard to say for sure how many new tanks Moscovia can produce. Based on the analysis of many data, I am inclined to believe that no more than 100 units per year. This is the production from scratch. Everything else is the renovation of Soviet tanks removed from conservation.
Next. We propose to think about the following question. The number of Muscovite tanks as of February 24 was no more than 3330 units (3000 in combat condition). That is to say, this is the number that should have been in equipped brigades by February 24. Over the past 2 years, Moscovia has maximally engaged military volunteers, plus a partial mobilization of 300 thousand, who were involved both to compensate for the heavy losses incurred during the occupation invasion and to form new troops.
According to the logic of increasing the number of new military formations, the number of tanks in the state should increase above the number of tanks available on February 23. But this could only happen if Moscovia has the “technical resource to produce tanks from scratch” to cover its losses with tanks removed from reserve. According to the information we have about the “newly created formations”, the number of tanks in the state should have been brought up to 4000–4500 (counted in closed communities).
As for today, according to the osint group Prophet, Information Resistance, and various foreign sources, the number of enemy tanks in Ukraine is about 2200 tanks - according to Prophet, and 2347 tanks — according to Information Resistance (with about 150 more tanks in reserve along the border with Ukraine). The so-called “border protection group”.
So we have the following: despite the formation of new units and army corps that should bring the number of tanks to 4000-4500 units, Moscovia is unable to cover current needs and has a real number of tanks that is less than the number it had before the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Estimation of the number of enemy tanks in Ukraine according to the data of the Military Prophet osint group
Thus, we can build a hypothesis. Although we do not know the actual number of newly manufactured tanks in Moscovia (there are only assumptions and partial analyses), the actual tank status of their troops indicates that the military-industrial complex of Moscovia cannot cope with the needs for regular manning. That is, the losses exceed the ability of the military-industrial complex to recover. This is without taking into account the fact that most of the “compensated tanks” are removed from long-term conservation, not manufactured from scratch.
As for the number of tanks in conservation that are suitable for use.
At the beginning of 2022, the Covert Cabal osint analyst estimated the number of tanks “in good condition and available for decommissioning” based on satellite imagery to be 4696.
As of March 2023, the number of suitable tanks had decreased to 3911. That is, by 785 units in just over a year.
According to estimates, the tanks remained at the storage bases in the following numbers: 270 T-54/55, 560 T-62, 248 T-64, 1841 T-72, 942 T-80, and 50 T-90. And these data +- coincide with many other analysts, settlers and estimates in gated communities that we have been able to get acquainted with. For example, the domestic osinte group Military Prophet gives a figure of 500-600 still somehow usable T-62s for deconservation. Also, the same group estimates the number of still somehow usable T-54/55s at 220. In other words, the figures in different Osint groups, more or less, match with an error that does not exceed 10%.
In other words, this is the data of researchers who take into account not only the “paper analysis” of data as in Military Balance, but also visual and other evidence from open and received data.
So, here's what we have. Moscovia has approximately 2,500 tanks in service as for the autumn of 2023 and could potentially de-conserve another 3,900 tanks of varying quality and suitability. It is important to realize that each subsequent tank that will be restored from conservation will be of worse quality than its predecessor. Therefore, the speed of deconservation and quality will decrease, and the necessary financial resources for the restoration of the unit will increase.
Currently, the main focus is on the deconservation of T-80s, while T-90As are being upgraded to the T-90M level separately. The enemy's total tank potential is about 6,400 tanks. The average rate of destruction of enemy tanks, according to the average data of the General Staff of Ukraine and Oryx, is 179 units per month. If we take into account the trends and consistent activity of the last 21 months, we will get 6400/179 = almost 3 years. BUT!
But then we take into account the following factors:
We counted according to the worst indicators for Ukraine (for example, the visual data of Oryx does not cover all the tanks lost by Moscovia during the invasion, there is a percentage of destroyed tanks that were not posted online so that they could be identified and counted).
Secondly, the longer the deconservation proceeds, the worse the technical condition of the next tank models will be, and the more significant Moscovia's losses will be due to the obsolete and poor quality of the product. Consequently, the median rate of 179 tanks per month has not settled, but has the potential to increase if the current pace of combat continues.
Third, we do not take into account such factors as either successful operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces or massive losses of armored vehicles in suicide attacks that Moscow carried out near Vuhledar or Avdiivka.
The potential destruction of Moscow's tank fleet can be divided into 3 stages:
The first stage has already been implemented by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The most combat-ready formations with tanks that Moscovia had on February 24 were destroyed. This included up to 3,300 units of “Moscow's best tanks.” The so-called “Moscovia's tank fist to Berlin”. This stage has already been passed by the defenders of Ukraine. According to visually confirmed data alone, the enemy lost 2,419 tanks, but in fact this figure is much higher (the question is how much). At this stage, it took Ukraine about a year and a half to say that up to 3,000 enemy tanks were destroyed.
The second stage is being implemented. The remains of the tank park that existed before February 24 are being compensated by production and rapid removal from conservation (mainly T-80s, T-62s, and T-90 modernization). But despite this, Moscovia's command cannot meet the expanded requirements of 4000–4500 tanks. It cannot even reach the level it had before February 24, which was 3,330 tanks.
But so far, Moscow is able to stably maintain its units with tanks from conservation at around 2000–2500 tanks. This stage, in our subjective opinion, was started by the Ukrainian Armed Forces about 6 months ago and is still ongoing.
At this stage, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will need to destroy the most combat-ready enemy tanks that have been removed from conservation: T-80s of various modifications and the largest group of tanks, T-72s. This means that it will be necessary to destroy about 4,000 more tanks of various modifications of T-80 and T-72 which are potentially suitable for deconservation. That is, about 2 years.
But we correlate this period with: minus 6 months during which the Armed Forces have already been destroying this particular category of tanks + their worse technical condition + an increase in technical means of destroying tanks (such as FPV). That is said, another 10–14 months with a similar speed of processes is needed to complete the second stage.
Third. What is expected. The third wave of “conservation”. This is the transition of the occupation forces of Moscovia to what its military-industrial complex produces from scratch. This includes from 100 to 150 units per year and the deconservation of the oldest models of T-54/55, T-62, T-64. This is about a grouping of 1500 tanks of inferior quality. At this stage, the 50-60-year-old tanks will be moved with a small number of new tanks produced by the Moscovia military-industrial wheel off the assembly line. In fact, this will already be the beginning of a large-scale “tank crisis” in the Moscovia army. The Ukrainian Armed Forces will need about another year to maximize the crisis in Moscovia's troops. After this year, without external supplies, it will be possible to say that Moscow has run out of tanks. Of course, we are not talking about 0 tanks in the arsenal, but the number that will not allow for offensive operations. This might be the first half of 2026.
*It should always be kept in mind that Moscovia will be unlikely to compensate the current losses by “deconservation”, especially if they increase, not because there are no tanks, but because the current tempo of the military-industrial complex does not keep up with the “rate of death”. In support of this statement, the information provided in the middle of the analysis is that Moscovia cannot bring the number of tanks available after the losses it has suffered to the number that should now be on hand. In other words, out of the 4,000-4,500 tanks required according to the staffing plan, no more than 2,400 tanks are available.
So it looks like for about another 10–14 months, until the end of 2024, Moscow will have powerful tank formations in the range of 1800–2500 tanks, mostly increased by the more or less new T-80, T-72, and T-90.
After 2024, Moscow's occupation forces should begin to experience significant problems with compensating for tank losses. The problems will be primarily due to the fact that the tempo of tank deconservation will drop because of their poor technical condition. The best will already be removed from stock. During this period, T-64, T-62, and T-54/55 will become the dominant armored vehicles, along with the T-90s that have been built from scratch, and the number of the enemy's total tank grouping should decrease to 1200–1500 tanks according to the tendencies. These will be much older and degraded tanks. After that, it will take another 8 to 12 months until the end of 2025 for the tank crisis in Moscow's troops to worsen. By the end of this period, Moscovia will have lost sufficient technical capacity to support large-scale armored offensive operations.
Therefore, our subjective forecast is that it will take from one and a half to two years before Moscow's tank reserves are completely exhausted. In other words, this is the end of 2025 - beginning of 2026. BUT! The enemy should feel the “crisis” in the tank component gradually and much earlier than the “critical exhaustion” timeframe we have indicated. Potentially, 2024 should be the “culmination” of the tank issue, 2025 - the inertial year (use of regular stocks and the last remaining stocks from storage bases). And 2026 will be the year when Moscow loses a sufficient tank component for offensive operations — the “tank crisis.”
Statements by some publications and journalists about the production of 1000 tanks per year are an exaggeration. This number takes into account tanks produced from scratch up to 100 units, plus those deconserved from arsenals.
And storage bases have the potential for exhaustion. Especially in terms of quality. At the end of 2025, Moscow is predicted to experience an extreme deficit of tanks due to the inability of its own military-industrial complex to compensate the losses, which will result from the loss of suitable tanks for restoration from storage bases.