Russia Still Has Three Years of Tanks in Storage Based on Satellite Imagery

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Youtuber Covert Cabal has updated his count of Russian Soviet era tanks in storage. He uses satellite images.

Russia is now making about 200-250 new tanks each. They are losing about 1400 tanks each year in the Ukraine war.

They have about 3500 tanks that are in suitable condition to be repaired and used in the war.

This means Russia can continue to lose 100-110 tanks a month for another three years. Russia would then drop to about 20 new tanks a month Russia would drop to 20% of its effectiveness for usable tank power in about three years.

29 thoughts on “Russia Still Has Three Years of Tanks in Storage Based on Satellite Imagery”

    • Russia is using its supply of tanks to match Ukraine’s army which is getting boosted by western military gear. The front lines are difficult and slow to move because of lots and lots of mines and trenches on both sides. It is a mix of WW1 with a bit of WW2.

    • Regardless of territory controlled, I’ve read that the Western help for Ukraine has reduced Russia’s main battle tank count by 50%. Looks like it would be closer to 0% in another 2 years.

    • Brian is pretty spot on, it’s the combo of drone guided artillery and mines, mines & mines, the russians in some area have so many mines they’re almost to the point of risking sympathetic detonations, that is ABSURD amounts of density, so much so you can see it in a lot of the drone footage, a large explosion will show many puffs of dirt near by, but it’s not shrapnel hitting, it’s mines being detonated.

  2. What I find fascinating about this (and I did enjoy CC’s excellent presentation) is that very little discussion of Russia’s overall security issues OUTSIDE of their invasion of the Ukraine is discussed. The Russians have a very, very long border with China that the Chinese have made it abundantly clear that they want to “recover”, which means that they cannot simply use up every tank available even if they wished to. The same might also be said of aircraft, artillery, etc., all of which are being depleted at a very rapid pace.

    There are other issues as well. They are burning up T-90s and late model T-72s and replacing them with early model T-72s and T-62s (to say nothing of T54/55s, which only useful as assault guns), to say nothing of the depletion of trained and effective tank crews. Even if they have enough operational vehicles to last 3 years (I think that the real number is closer to 2, but we need not worry about this right now), they don’t have the personnel, support systems, etc. to sustain them nearly that long.

    If their bet is that Putin’s will can outlast that of the West, it might be a winning proposition (though I suspect not), but even if so the long term damage to the Russian state’s security situation (EVEN IF SUCCESSFUL) will be horrific. Perhaps in the future we would call it a Puntic victory?

  3. The critical aspect that is overlooked is that Russia’s production of approx. 250 tanks/year is mostly refurbishing stored tanks, not new tanks. New tank production is only about 20-30 per year. So Russia cannot lose 100 tanks/month for three years, as the article claims, as they can only put into service around 20 per month, plus returning some damaged tanks to service that are repaired locally in theatre.

    If they have say 800 tanks in Ukraine, and are losing 100/month and putting into service 40/month, then they have about 12 months. Of course as the tank numbers dwindle the losses will decrease as they simply won’t commit tanks to battle, so they will never completely run out, but they will no longer be able to muster significant numbers.

  4. Tanks do not win wars. men willing to die in tanks win wars.
    So the question is, how many tank crews does Russia have that are willing to die to invade Ukraine?

  5. There is little sign that Ukraine is being used. Ukraine was attacked in 2014. President Yanukovych sought to deliver on the promise of a path to Europe that got him elected to be president of Ukraine by negotiating the Association Agreement with the EU. The Agreement was approved by parliament by a strong majority – 319 votes out of 449 possible in May 2013. Late in 2013 Putin pressured Yanukovych to abandon the Association Agreement to join the Eurasian Union. Parliament had no vote in the matter. Massive demonstrations resulted. By mid February 2014 Yanukovych was unable to suppress the protests and was ready to negotiate with the demonstrators. Without political support and opposed to annexation of Crimea or any other part of Ukraine he was no longer of use to Putin and exited.
    The seizure of Crimea is comparable to the seizure of the Sudetenland by Hitler in 1938 and represented a comparable threat to the security of Europe but it was not enough to build the solidarity in Europe to support the sovereignty of Ukraine. Putin’s invasion in 2022 achieved the remarkable move by Finland and Sweden to join NATO after decades of neutrality. Scientists in Europe sought to isolate Russia by excluding Russia from CERN and by ESA cancelling cooperation with Russia on the ExoMars mission and many similar actions.
    Europeans do not want to see a replay of the late 1930s when the USSR was booted out of the League of Nations for its invasion of Finland.
    Russia had multiple treaties with Ukraine guaranteeing its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is akin to the attack and seizure of territory in Iraq and Syria by ISIS to restore a mythical Caliphate. Putin’s great Russia-world is also a mythical construct. A key difference is that Russia is a real state with a web of agreements that assured Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within the security fabric of Europe. Russia’s destruction of this security web is a far-reaching action that must be countered until the present regime is defeated.
    In 2014 ISIS had seized the territory around the Mosul Dam in Iraq. There were fears that ISIS would destroy the dam and cause a massive ecological disaster to prevail. ISIS did not destroy the dam. In October 2022 Russia mined the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper river. On June 6 Russia forces exploded the mines and broached the dam. Russia is willing to take actions shunned by global terrorists and has thousands of tanks in storage does not diminish the need to help Ukraine to prevail against aggression.

  6. How old are the tanks?
    How well maintained are they?
    What is the state of spares for these tanks?
    What is the operational cost of diverting resources to recommission these machines
    Is there the manpower available to operate them?

  7. Lots of people predicted Russia was going to win this through attrition.

    We were all called Putin Bots. I have been called a Putin Bot – deeply ironic given that I am Ex-Service and most Brits are hardly supporters of Moscow and as a country we have massively punched over our weight in arms and support.

    The SHAME of this and it is shame is that despite Western intelligence agencies being perfectly well aware of Russian capabilities, they were more than happy to throw Ukrainian fighting-age men into the grinder in order to degrade Russia. To think they could ever ‘win’ was not even on the table – they were happy for THAT country to pay the full costs in men and devastation in order to achieve their long term goals for degrading Russia.

    So what we have now is (whether you f’in like it or not) – is a resurgent Russian military arms industry that is more than keeping pace. It is also innovating at crazy speed. Russia has also stood up and battle-hardened an army with hundreds of thousands of pissed off young men.

    Add to that – perhaps worst of all – the tightening bonds between China – the expansion of BRICS and the move to undermine the $ – It is a total, complete shambles and a cluster F.

    When this is over – those of you, many of you, that cheered this on and put little Ukrainian flags on your FB profiles – learn some humility. Scratch beneath the Western pervasive propaganda and be MUCH more careful in the future.

    Finally, the most ghastly use of Ukraine, the eradication of the flower of a generation, their incalculable losses should be compensated for by the West. They are a delightful people, their losses are just breathtaking – the bill to rebuild their home should be sat with the West and in particular, A M E R I C A.

    • There is little sign that Ukraine is being used. Ukraine was attacked in 2014. President Yanukovych sought to deliver on the promise of a path to Europe that got him elected to be president of Ukraine by negotiating the Association Agreement with the EU. The Agreement was approved by parliament by a strong majority – 319 votes out of 449 possible in May 2013. Late in 2013 Putin pressured Yanukovych to abandon the Association Agreement to join the Eurasian Union. Parliament had no vote in the matter. Massive demonstrations resulted. By mid February 2014 Yanukovych was unable to suppress the protests and was ready to negotiate with the demonstrators. Without political support and opposed to annexation of Crimea or any other part of Ukraine he was no longer of use to Putin and exited.
      The seizure of Crimea is comparable to the seizure of the Sudetenland by Hitler in 1938 and represented a comparable threat to the security of Europe but it was not enough to build the solidarity in Europe to support the sovereignty of Ukraine. Putin’s invasion in 2022 achieved the remarkable move by Finland and Sweden to join NATO after decades of neutrality. Scientists in Europe sought to isolate Russia by excluding Russia from CERN and by ESA cancelling cooperation with Russia on the ExoMars mission and many similar actions.
      Europeans do not want to see a replay of the late 1930s when the USSR was booted out of the League of Nations for its invasion of Finland.
      Russia had multiple treaties with Ukraine guaranteeing its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is akin to the attack and seizure of territory in Iraq and Syria by ISIS to restore a mythical Caliphate. Putin’s great Russia-world is also a mythical construct. A key difference is that Russia is a real state with a web of agreements that assured Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within the security fabric of Europe. Russia’s destruction of this security web is a far-reaching action that must be countered until the present regime is defeated.
      In 2014 ISIS had seized the territory around the Mosul Dam in Iraq. There were fears that ISIS would destroy the dam and cause a massive ecological disaster to prevail. ISIS did not destroy the dam. In October 2022 Russia mined the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper river. On June 6 Russia forces exploded the mines and broached the dam. Russia is willing to take actions shunned by global terrorists and has thousands of tanks in storage does not diminish the need to help Ukraine to prevail against aggression.

    • Bleeding-Heart Liberal Sentimental Nonsense. This is a garbage part of the World with very little potential to modernization in technology or cohesive cultural improvement. The eastern Bloc, Turkey, the ‘Stans’, northern parts of the Middle East have been ’empiring’ and beating each other up over petty religious, familial, traditional mores, and other such backward-savage crap for centuries. If it wasn’t for the UK, northern Europe, and possibly parts of China a few centuries ago during Industrialization, these tribes would be without electricity, sanitation, or any type of modern weaponry. The entire purpose of trying to ‘constrain’ Russia by arming an unusually passionate and driven Ukraine is to diminish the biggest bully in the bunch. By having a region without a significant, over-whelming monster, it may be possible to have this gang of barely-governable fiefdoms evolve and modernize without the temptation of annexing significant parts of each other and then having that cascading into a ‘Peter the Great’ craving for domination and glory – the only source, apparently, of ambition these Billion-or-so ‘sapients’ have. Relieving Russia of access to the Black Sea on the west and north; diminishing their land forces/ air within 100 miles of NATO/EU borders creates a hard, easily defensible border so Russia can have ‘a time out’ – in some kind of attempt to get their crap together. Kicking them out of the Security Council, if not the UN, would be a good start to the comeuppance these ‘crusaders’ with Delusions of Glory.

      • They why has the US been buying Ukrainian rocket engines for decades?

        All the experts agree they’re superior to Western engines.

        Just one example.

        You sound . . . American.

    • “Resurgent Russian military arms industry”

      Where are their stealth fighters? Where are their hypersonic wonder-weapons? How are they going to build or maintain a Navy without Sevastopol? Who’s going to buy their weapons?

      Russia is not the USSR. Russia is, at best, a shadow of the USSR. Nobody will buy their weapons after this war so they will have to self-finance. Russia, with a population of 150,000,000 alcoholics and a GDP of $1.73 trillion, cannot hope to compete with NATO which has the best universities in the world, a population of over 1,000,000,000, and a combined GDP of $55 trillion (this is on a PPP basis too).

      So long as Ukraine is willing to fight Russia, the largest country in the world by land mass, will continue to bleed all for the insane idea of conquering someone else’s land.

      • “Where are their stealth fighters?” — Why do they need stealth fighters? They’re fighting Ukraine. That has just taken delivery of 50 year old F16s . . .

        “How are they going to build or maintain a Navy without Sevastopol?” – Unless we’re very lucky, maybe they fancy Odessa.

        “150,000,000 alcoholics” how rude … better than 330 million fentanyl addicts though?

        “So long as Ukraine is willing to fight” – that’s it, Ukraine can fight until its out of men… how very brave from your armchair of you . . . Who. The. Hell. Will. Rebuild?

        The use of Ukraine by the West, NATO and in particular America is beyond disgusting – they have been ill used.

  8. 3500 is only the number satellite can see. If we take in account the number satellite cannot see, Russia has at least 5000 tanks in storage. An the number of tanks Russian lost each month will down over time as they use it more efficient and Ukr is weaker. So Russia have will have minimum 5 years before its storage depleted. If Russia continue to double tank production every two year, they will produce more than 1000 tank per year in 5 years. So no tank shortage even with moderate capacity mobilization as Russia doing now

    • First off these tanks are very old cannon fodder. Easily taken out by a cheap anti tank weapon. The Russians are terrible at combined arms and are using “meat waves” of men to attack the Ukraine lines. They are also just as stupid with their use of tanks. The other factor to consider is the the men who drive those tanks are also being eliminated. It takes many months to train a good tanker and some say as long as a year. Those experienced takers are now gone. So all you have left are tanks that are 50 years old in bad condition driven buy inexperienced unmotivated men and commanded by incompetent commanders. On the other hand you have the Ukraine troupes that are very motivated being supplied with the latest western weapons.
      The long term cost are terrible for both sides but Russia is finished. More than 100,000 of their most talented and educated have fled the country and are not coming back. Russia has lost IMO 100,000 men and at least that amount of seriously wounded. This will accelerate the already demographic decline of Russia. Add to that the weapons of Russia have been proven to be inferior and thus future arms sales are in doubt. This will cause the whole military complex to collapse given the foreign monies needed to build new systems will dry up from foreign buyers.

    • There is no evidence that Russia is using tanks more efficiently as tanks are now being lost at a higher rate than in early 2022. This is due to:
      1. Less experienced Russian crews (all of the experienced crews are dead)
      2. Russia now has to traverse minefields when on the offensive
      3. Ukrainian FPV drones have become extremely effective against tanks. A recent kill against a T-90 set a record at 22km from its launch point.

  9. Tanks in storage are an easy target. Home made Ukraine missiles have a 1,000 mile range. Battle ships, ammunition, fuel, and transportation are priority targets. Russia has a brand spanking new missile frigate, the Askold, to sell you. Never used. Cheap.

    • Their tank storage sites are no where near the front lines, or within range of anything that Ukraine has you doughnut.

  10. Silly Russkies.
    They waited too long – should have mobilized these and brought forth full General Mobilization/ Defense Industrial Complex production past Summer when they stalled at Bahkmut.
    All USSR air support/ effect along the south front/lines to be lost with the coming US/NATO aircraft lends and contributions. Snip-Snip of the GLOCs with ATACMS and line breakthrus near/ at Melitopol (Sea of Azov) and there goes Crimea and the remainder of Russia’s influence on that Black Sea coast. Where shall the Black Sea Fleet hence forth go?
    This would be a good Positional Line for the Ukranians going into late Winter 2024.
    The EU and NATO will have to figure out Ukraine’s chances/ boundaries after that. Very Unclear.

    • They’re going to win this – you’re deluding yourself.

      The F16 is a 50 years old air plane – without blisteringly modern radar it can’t and won’t do much. The Russians have shown themselves willing to take huge casualties and continue to press on.

      As to a port – Unless we’re very lucky – maybe they’ll go with Odessa once this is over.

  12. The average age of Russian tanks, IFVs and such which are visually confirmed destroyed is growing so the quality will be falling sooner than the numbers.

    • Exactly. They picked the best condition hulls to restore first. As time has gone on they have begun to restore older and older hulls in worse and worse shape. There is a trend of Russian tanks dying with their cannon fixed in the forward position. Combined with Russian telegram posts complaining of inoperable hydraulics in the turret it’s reasonable to assume that some of the tanks being sent to the front cannot even aim properly.

  13. This raises the question of to what extent they’re cannibalizing tanks in storage to get some of them working.

    • Covert Cabal brings this up and yes many of them are being cannibalized for parts.

      Cabal’s number is an upper limit. After 3 years there are no more tanks left in storage but well before that there are no more useful tanks left in storage. T60s just do not cut it against Ukraine’s weapons. Russia’s current use of meat waves is unsustainable and they no longer have the ability to attack.

      There’s one more year left in the war before both sides are spent but it will be a hard one for Russia. They have lost artillery superiority and are stuck in trenches waiting for drones and artillery strikes to hit them. Russia can’t base helicopters or jets anywhere near the front.

    • CC brings this up: in satteltie photos its clear there are “disgarded” piles on the tank yards. In other words piles where turrets, hulls, etc. are grouped together haphazardly. That indicates that Russia is stripping many tanks for parts. The piles are quite large.

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