The Last Ride of the Soviet Army? The Russians have already lost three thousand tanks, they are replacing them from storage

• The Russian army again showed only one tank at the parade.
• Ukraine has already lost three thousand tanks, two thousand were destroyed.
• It can replace losses, but 80 percent only from warehouses.
• Two thirds of Russian tanks are destroyed by FVP drones.
• Ukrainians can recruit prisoners into the army.
• Videos of the day: Ukrainian parade of destroyed Russian tanks and Bradley hits a T-80 at long range.

The information in this text is a summary of events for Wednesday, May 8. The situation may be different in some places.

Russians held their annual Victory Over Fascism Day military parade on Thursday and they traditionally started it with a T-34 tank. This is an old tank that fought with the Wehrmacht in World War II.

Like last year, this was the only tank that the Russian army showed to the onlookers in Moscow. Even in 2022, a few months after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the T-34 group was followed by T-72 tanks or the Russian “miracle” Armata tank (the Russians have already announced that they will not produce it due to the high price). At the last two parades, however, no others rode behind the old T-34 tank.

But we don’t have to draw any conclusions from this right away. The Russians certainly have tanks on hand that are not in Ukraine and could have demonstrated them. Why they don’t do it anymore, we have no idea.

Coincidentally, this year the parade took place exactly on the day when the Russians on the front marked a certain milestone. In the war in Ukraine, according to the Oryx portal, 3,000 tanks were demonstrably lost, of which 2,000 were destroyed (most of the rest were captured by the Ukrainians). The actual number may be even higher. By the way, the Ukrainians report the loss of 7400 Russian tanks, which is about twice overshot.

In any case, three thousand confirmed tanks is roughly the number of tanks the Russians had in active service before the start of the war.

What is the rate of loss. Last year, the Russians demonstrably lost a thousand tanks. They are continuing at this pace this year as well. Although the number of destroyed tanks appeared to decrease in April, it was only a short-term deviation. Already in the first eight days of May, Oryx recorded 64 destroyed tanks – as many as in the whole of April.

The main question is how long the Russians will be able to afford such losses. Analysts from RUSI wrote in February that