16. feb. 2023 01:08 – Updated 16 Feb. 2023 01:10
During the first year of the war, Russia lost around half of its best tanks and is struggling to replace them, according to the think tank IISS.
On the other hand, the Russians have largely preserved most of their air force, and they may use it more actively in the next phase of the war, says the latest edition of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual Military Balance report.
In the report, which is an important reference tool for defense experts, the IISS writes that as many as half of Russia’s most modern tanks may have been lost, and that the Kremlin is forced to use older tanks from the Soviet era.
– They are not producing or putting back into business anywhere near enough tanks to make up for these losses. The number of tanks at the front now is around half of what it was at the start of the war, research fellow Henry Boyd at the IISS told Reuters.
Western tanks to Ukraine
He estimates that Russia has lost between 2,000 and 2,300 tanks, and that losses on the Ukrainian side are up to 700.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has been promised around 100 modern Western tanks, among them American-made Abrams, German Leopard and British Challenger, all of which are far more advanced than the older, Soviet models.
– It can lead to less aggressive and confident Russian tank maneuvers, because the crews can become more concerned about the level of threat they will face, according to Boyd.
Russian Air Force
Russia has managed to keep most of its air force intact, according to the IISS. This is because they have chosen to operate from a distance to avoid Ukrainian air defenses and because they have had a shortage of short-range air-to-ground missiles, according to IISS aviation expert Douglas Barrie
According to Barrie, Russia may use the air force more actively and also potentially take more risks to hit larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers on the ground.
– One of the challenges from a Ukrainian perspective is that if they either have to repel a significant Russian ground attack or muster their own forces… then they will be vulnerable to attacks from the air. Then the Russians may decide that they will tolerate greater losses of soldiers in order to inflict even greater losses on the other side, says Barrie.
Bloody year ahead
A year after the war broke out, Russia has been pushed back from much of the territory it first seized, but it still controls large parts of the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Zaporizhzhya and Kherson in the south. š
Ukraine has been warning for weeks that a new major Russian offensive is in store. Russia claimed on Wednesday to have broken through two reinforced defense lines on the eastern front.
According to Barrie, Western sanctions are hampering Russia’s ability to replenish its stockpile of missiles and other remote-controlled weapons that use imported microprocessors.
Ben Barry, who is an expert on ground warfare at the IISS, says he is skeptical of Russia’s chances of making significant progress.
– My assessment is that it will be difficult to gather enough reliable and competent forces to push the Ukrainians far behind, he says. But, at the same time, it is “not obvious to me that Kyiv has enough fighting ability to quickly dislodge Russian forces”, he adds.
– We can probably wait a bloody year, is Barry’s verdict.
