Russia went to war with 2,500 tanks, lost 1,600 in the first year and, over the same span of time, might have built or repaired around 850. A Russian source told Novaya Gazeta that Uralvagonzavod and Siberia-based Omsktransmash can restore 600 old tanks a year on top of the 250 new T-72s and T-90s Uralvagonzavod can build.ĭo the math. So in fact, Russia might have as few as 3,800 repairable tanks in reserve. There also are a couple hundred new-ish T-90s in storage, most of which should be in reasonably good condition. Maybe half the 3,000 T-80s realistically can be restored. The open-source analyst assumed just a third of the 6,900 stored T-72s are recoverable. The problem is, most of those tanks are lined up tread-to-tread in outdoor parks, where they’ve been exposed to rain and cycles of cold and hot that have rusted metal, rotted rubber and degraded sensitive optics. But one open-source analyst counted 10,000 T-72s, T-80 and T-90s in the war reserve. Novaya Gazeta estimated there are 8,000 “preserved” tanks.

It’s a matter of intensive debate just how many recoverable tanks Russia has in storage.

Russian battle tanks for sale