The T-62 was adopted in the early 1960s and was considered retired. In October a train also originating from Arsenyev and carrying T-62s was photographed in Yekaterinburg, and there is video and photo evidence of the Ukrainians destroying and capturing several such tanks during the offensive that eventually liberated Kherson in November. Russia appears to have begun dusting off mothballed tanks to replace losses to its T-72 and T-80 fleet shortly after the defeat of its attempt to take Kyiv early in the war.Īs early as May last year, obsolete T-62 tanks were showing up on the frontlines, particularly on the southern front around Kherson. That means Russia has lost about half of the modern T-72s and T-72s and two thirds of its T-80s that made up its active modern tank fleet when the war began (IISS estimated Russia had 2,927 modern tanks in total and 1,200 tanks in storage, most of which were T-72s and T-80s, when the war began). Oryx, an open-source intelligence agency, says it has counted around 1,700 confirmed Russian tank losses.Įxperts at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a British military think tank, said in February that it had confirmed the same number as Oryx but that the true figure could be between 2,000 and 2,300. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ rolling tally of claimed Russian tank losses stood at 3,557 on Wednesday. “It suggests the Ukrainians are continuing to knock out their modern tanks and the proportion of modern tanks being used against Ukraine begins to decline - at a time when the West is supplying modern tanks.”Įxactly how many tanks Russia has lost in Ukraine is disputed.
It suggests they’ve used up all the T-62s they have in service so they are down to T-55s,” said Ben Barry, an armoured warfare expert at the think tank, referring to another obsolete tank Russia has used to plug gaps in its arsenal. So there are no more modern tanks left in stockpiles. “What this tells us is that all the remaining modern tanks are in or around Ukraine. But the fact they have been taken out of storage was taken by experts as further confirmation of a high level of attrition of more modern vehicles. It is not clear what the tanks’ destination is, or whether they will ever see combat. Arsenyev is the location of the 1295th Central Tank Repair and Storage Base, a large facility for mothballed military equipment.
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