Oleg Davygora23:24, 05.12.24

Satellite photos of Russian fleets and dumps show that stocks of old tanks are rapidly depleting.

Three years of pressure from an unprecedented sanctions campaign have weakened the Kremlin’s military machine, forcing it to skimp on quality and use outdated equipment.

According to The Washington Post, American officials are talking about this, while seriously questioning its long-term viability.

It is noted that Russia still manages to obtain many critical Western weapons parts through secret agents and criminal groups, while it buys others from China. Its forces are now steadily gaining strength due to a clear numerical advantage, so the impact of sanctions on the battlefield is muted.

According to analysts, Moscow appears to face long-term problems in producing sufficient quantities of artillery ammunition, as well as in producing durable, high-strength barrels for tanks and howitzers.

But Russia is compensating for this by collecting parts from old Soviet tanks and howitzers. But satellite images of Russian fleets and junkyards show that the stockpile of old tanks is rapidly depleting, said George Barros, head of the Russia group at the Institute for the Study of War. He noted:

“Given the current rate at which the Russians are burning these vehicles, they will have a shortage of tanks by the end of 2025. And this will have huge consequences for frontline combat operations.”

The earliest sanctions aimed to cripple Russia’s economy, hitting the country’s oil and banking sectors, with ultimately mixed results. Hundreds of other sanctions aimed to stem the flow of Western components Russia needs to make weapons. Some were designed to prevent Moscow from obtaining advanced avionics, specialized computer chips and sensors used in drones, missiles and tanks.

Even though more and more “shaheeds” are failing to achieve their goals, Russian arms factories manage to produce more of them and at higher prices.

American officials have said they believe the sanctions are working, gradually undermining Russian arms production in ways that will inexorably hinder Moscow from achieving its war goals. Many independent experts agree that the sanctions have degraded the quality of Russian equipment and made supply chains more fragile. Russia is losing more tanks and howitzers each month than its factories can produce, and the continued pressure could eventually bring some assembly lines to a standstill, American officials and experts say.

“Even if they manage to circumvent the sanctions, it will entail additional costs,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. He warned that Russia is betting that sheer numbers will compensate for any defects in its weapons systems.

Other experts argue that despite the impressive scale of the sanctions regime against Moscow, Western governments have failed to compel Russia’s neighbors and trading partners to fully comply with the measures, opening the way for large-scale fraud. In addition, NATO countries have been slow to identify and address some of the vulnerabilities in the Russian defense industry, including several obvious bottlenecks.

For example, Russia can easily buy drone engines and computer chips from China. But it still struggles to find adequate supplies of essential goods like the high-performance lubricants needed to keep tanks running in cold weather, or the computerized machine tools needed to build drone and missile airframes, said Christopher Garriso of the nonprofit organization that tracks illicit networks linked to Russia and other authoritarian regimes. He added:

“Russia lost almost its entire machine tool industry after the Cold War, and it can’t even produce AK-47s without this technology. We don’t need to appease Russia by sacrificing Ukrainians. We just need to deprive them of metal cutting technology.”

(C)UNIAN 2024