The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has released a disturbing analysis noting the unsustainable pace at which Russia is losing military equipment, specifically armored fighting vehicles (AFVs). The close look has shown that Russian military inventory depletion has reached levels many times greater than what defense industrial base can replace in the foreseeable future.
Open-source intelligence accounts have been tracking the significant reduction of Russian military equipment, noting a nearly one-third decrease in AFVs from prewar numbers down from 15,152 in 2021 to 10,389. The X account said that satellite imagery had also found Russia had pulled most of its MT-LB multipurpose AFVs from storage, where only 922 remain compared with 2,527 prewar.
The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) had earlier estimated that Russia might be able to likely maintain its rate of vehicle loss on an annual basis. The IISS reported that Moscow’s forces lost more than 3,000 AFVs last year and some 8,000 of the vehicles in the course of the war, compelling it to bring back at least 1,180 main battle tanks and about 2,470 IFVs and armored personnel carriers from storage.
The same can be said about Russia’s artillery. Around 60 percent of Russia’s artillery systems have reportedly been withdrawn from storage, while half of the remaining will be probably out of commission due to degradation or incompatibility with new ammunition.
The ISW’s analysis presents a bleak portrait of Russia’s industrial and logistical problems, suggesting that the country “will likely struggle to adequately supply its units with materiel in the long term without transferring the Russian economy to a wartime footing.”
In the conflict more generally, Russia still enjoys the benefit of Ukraine’s shortage of weapons, using this to its advantage in taking the initiative on the battlefield. In spite of the authorization of a major US package of military aid for Ukraine, the West has placed restrictions on the usage of these weapons.
