This post has been a long time coming.
When Russia launched its illegal war of territorial aggression against Ukraine in February of 2022, Russia was thought to have as many as 10,000 tanks in it’s inventory, including vast numbers of older Soviet-era armor.
Covert Cabal has been regularly tracking the depletion of Russian tank reserves using satellite imagery. Four months ago, they put out a video counting tanks remaining in Russian depots:
Their initial satellite images showed a total of 6107 tanks in all depots in 2021, whereas their most recent count only shows 3,345. However: “Virtually every one of these tanks left is in absolutely horrible condition. Before the war it was probably closer to 50/50, but those good ones since have been the ones that were grabbed from storage first.” They also note that the initial number was almost certainly higher than the ones they could count, as they were probably better vehicles stored in garages. They estimate that pretty much all of those are now gone.
By at least one estimate, those 10,000 theoretical tanks have already been destroyed.
“Ukraine’s general staff claims that 9,760 Russian tanks have been destroyed.” Oryx says 3,690 have been destroyed, but those are only the ones they can visually confirm. And some of those tanks are very old indeed. (Russia even deployed World War II howitzer earlier this year. )
“The situation has gotten so bad as of January 2025 that many resort to attacking in any vehicle on which they can get their hands.”
Which brings us to today’s Suchomimus video of a recent Russian assault:
“Ukraine reported that Russian troops tried to break through using 18 motorcycles and 10 civilian cars.”
If Russia is launching assaults without a single military vehicle to provide firepower or protection, that suggests that they’re nearing the end of their stockpiles of tanks and BMPs. Sending such pathetically equipped troops into the teeth of drone-armed Ukrainians is tantamount to admitting their meatwave attacks are merely suicide missions.
This suggests that all usable Soviet-era tank stockpiles have finally been depleted.