June 5, 2024

Russia has stepped up the purchase of Soviet weapons and equipment around the world: what happened to its military-industrial complex reserves

This week it became known that Russian special representatives are trying to negotiate with Sudan on the purchase of Soviet equipment – in particular, we can talk about tanks.

And the news would be quite passable if we did not take into account the fact that Moscow has intensified its activities on the issue of purchasing Soviet equipment around the world.

Is Russia really running out of weapons? Let’s figure it out.

Back in 2022, Russia began searching for ammunition and equipment for its army, which was clearly bogged down in the war in Ukraine for more than 2-3 days.

But then this search was not as active as in 2023, when the aggressor country became ready to buy back old Soviet and Russian weapons and equipment exported over the past 30 years to countries in Asia, Africa and even Latin America.

And the information about the current attempts of the Russians to obtain weapons in Sudan is somewhat discordant with the propaganda reports of Russian media that the country’s military-industrial complex is working as never before, and production volumes are growing day by day.

But if this were true, it is unlikely that Russia would be looking for old Soviet equipment all over the world to buy back.

Approximately 90% of the equipment sent by the Russian military-industrial complex to the combat zone in Ukraine is not new, produced completely from scratch, but restored old Soviet equipment – from warehouses and storage centers. And in the third year of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Russian stocks of Soviet equipment were significantly thinned, and against the backdrop of the accelerating pace of its destruction and parallel restoration, the process of stock reduction accelerated.

Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia supplied the troops with 300 to 400 tanks, but not new ones, produced from scratch, but repaired, modernized, and restored after storage.

Currently, 350-400 tanks are the average figure for the Russian military-industrial complex of restoration, modernization, production and repair per month. Of this amount of new products, the Russian occupation forces receive no more than a T-90 company, everything else is in other categories. About 100 tanks were repaired after receiving damage, work on which was carried out mainly in repair battalions.

In turn, in warehouses and storage centers at the beginning of 2024 in Russia there remained:

T-90A and T90S – up to 100 tanks;
T-72 – about 1,500 tanks of varying degrees of maintainability;
T-80 – about 800 units of varying degrees of maintainability;
T-62 – up to 600 units;
T-54/55 – up to 600 tanks of varying degrees of maintainability.

Thus, the total number of tanks stored in relatively and conditionally repairable condition is 3,600 units…

Military #OSINT #Intelligence

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Comment from :

Alessio Rebola:

The main Russian enterprises involved in the production and restoration of tanks are:

Uralvagonzavod – restoration and modernization of the T-72. Restoration and modernization, as well as small production of T-90;
Omsktransmash – restoration and modernization of T-80;
103 BTRZ – restoration and modernization of T-62;
61 BTRZ – restoration and modernization of T-72, T-80;
163 BTRZ – restoration and modernization of the T-72.

Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia supplied the troops with 300 to 400 tanks, but not new ones, produced from scratch, but repaired, modernized, and restored after storage.

Currently, 350-400 tanks are the average figure for the Russian military-industrial complex of restoration, modernization, production and repair per month. Of this amount of new products, the Russian occupation forces receive no more than a T-90 company, everything else is in other categories. About 100 tanks were repaired after receiving damage, work on which was carried out mainly in repair battalions.