Minus 3000 tanks and almost 9000 armored vehicles in a year: ISW assessed whether Russia will be able to sustain such losses until 2026

Ukraine's defense forces destroyed or damaged more than 3,000 tanks and nearly 9,000 armored vehicles of the Russian army in 2024. Today, the Russian Federation continues to accumulate losses of equipment that will likely not be covered in the medium term.

Obviously, the aggressor will not be able to hold out until 2026 with the arsenal of equipment it has in stock and is simultaneously being manufactured by the military-industrial complex. This was reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in a report dated January 4.

Citing data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, analysts note that Ukrainian forces destroyed or damaged 3,689 tanks, 8,956 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 13,050 artillery systems, and 407 air defense systems of the Russian Armed Forces between January 1, 2024, and January 1, 2025.

It is also known that Russian troops lost at least 197 tanks, 661 armored personnel carriers (APCs) and 65 artillery systems with a caliber of more than 100 mm along the entire front line during intensive offensive operations in the Donetsk region in September and October 2024. Probably, they suffered even greater losses of armored vehicles in June and July 2024, when they conducted mechanized attacks in western Donetsk region several times a week.

"The current rate of armor and tank production in Russia indicates that such losses are likely to be prohibitive in the long term, especially as Russia continues to use its Soviet-era stockpile," ISW noted.

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets said in February 2024 that the Russian military-industrial complex (MIC) could produce 250-300 "new and fully modernized" tanks and repair about the same number of additional damaged vehicles per year, far below the estimate of 3,600 Russian tanks destroyed last year.

The British think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) also reported in February 2024 that Russia could maintain its current level of equipment losses (more than 3,000 vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles, annually as of 2023 and nearly 8,800 between February 2022 and February 2024) for at least two to three years (until about February 2026 or 2027), largely by restoring equipment from Soviet-era warehouses.

However, in late December, a social media source that tracks Russian military depots using satellite imagery shared an updated estimate, stating that the Russian Armed Forces had 47% of their pre-war stockpile of tanks, 52% of infantry fighting vehicles, and 45% of armored personnel carriers in storage as of 22.12.2024 The researcher noted that the occupiers have used most of the T-90 and T-80 tanks, but still have most of their old tanks in storage, although some of them have probably been severely worn out by weather and time.

"Therefore, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Russian military will be able to sustain its current annual rate of loss of nearly 9,000 armored vehicles through 2025. It is almost three times the annual rate of losses in the first two years of the war. And this suggests that the IISS estimate of February 2024, that Russia could withstand the loss of its equipment until 2025 or 2026, is no longer correct," the ISW stated.

As OBOZ.UA reported, at the end of 2024, The Wall Street Journal estimated that the loss of Russian army armored vehicles in the war against Ukraine was equivalent to almost 15 years of pre-war tank production in Russia. And most analysts are convinced that at the current rate of production of new vehicles, Russia's stocks will last for about two years.

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