How Man Tanks does Russia Have? A Bad Situation for the Kremlin that Probably Won’t Improve

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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

On Jan. 13 Ukrainian military news platforms reported the first capture of a T-90S -  Russia’s most modern confirmed operational tank and a weapon heavily promoted for export markets - in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. Russia reportedly had 200 T-90 tanks with its own units at the start of the war, and was fulfilling a contract to send components to India for the manufacture of about 1,000 more. According to Oryx, by end of January the AFU had destroyed or captured 45 Russian army T-90s.

Most military analysts estimate Russia might be able to manufacture 20-30 modern, T-90 grade tanks month - as long as the Kremlin manages to source of sanctioned foreign-manufactured components like thermal sights for the vehicles.

A Russian reserve tank model whose deployment to Ukraine has been confirmed - the T-62 – is an obsolete vehicle developed in the mid-20^th century, and in recent years upgraded by the Russian arms industry with a view for export to African states.  

The first T-62 tanks heading towards the war were spotted and widely reported by Ukrainian military intelligence and social media in late May 2022. According to Oryx, the AFU has since then written at least 63 T-62 tanks off Russian arm equipment balances.

Commitment of obsolete T-62 tanks – and absence of serious numbers of more modern ones -  to battle in Ukraine is strong evidence that of the 10,000 tanks in reserve the Kremlin supposedly had in reserve, many if not most are too dilapidated to be useful for anything except as a source of scrap metal, a May 27 British military intelligence situation estimate said.