Vladimir Putin has been forced to mothball nearly half of his old tanks and armored vehicles from a large Siberian open-air depot after suffering massive losses in Ukraine.
Some 1,570 rusting war machines have been taken from their Siberian landfill and put back into service for the Russian president’s war against Ukraine, reports say.
More than 40 percent of the 3,840 tanks and military vehicles seen in Google Earth satellite images at the Vagzhanovo Military Equipment Depot before the war have now been removed from storage, it is said.
The site in the Republic of Buryatia is the largest in Russia, covering five square miles.
Footage shows repurposed obsolete tanks from storage sites such as Vagzhanovo – of which there are several across Russia – being transported to the war zone by military train.
Vladimir Putin has been forced to mothball nearly half of his old tanks and armored vehicles from a large open-air depot (pictured)
Some 1,570 rusting war machines have been taken from their Siberian landfill and put back into service for the Russian president’s war against Ukraine, reports say
Video footage (pictured) shows repurposed T-54 and T-55 tanks being transported across Russia as Moscow troops seek reinforcements after massive hardware losses
The use of the Soviet-era machines is a sign of Putin’s desperation, but also of his miscalculation that his existing resources would meet his wartime needs.
Data on the main military storage base was taken by the Russian edition of The Moscow Times from photographers’, travelers’ and media publications’ blogs.
After eight months of war in November 2022, approximately 2,600 armored vehicles remained at the base, and by May 2023 this had fallen to 2,270.
Most of the equipment was stored outside on the base. Many have missing turrets and would require significant repair work to be in workable condition.
Among the old tanks are T-62s, produced until 1975.
Russia is known to be renovating Soviet-era creaking tanks in droves because of Putin’s war losses.
He has commissioned the construction of two tank repair plants.
A 24-hour factory in Chita, Siberia, is working to modernize its aging T-62s.
During a visit to the factory in six time zones east of Moscow, Putin propagandist and war fanatic Lieutenant General Andrey Gurulev (55) said: “Tanks over 50 years old are being transformed into modern, normal machines that can perform tasks. and meeting today’s frontline challenges.”
He boasted, “These T-62 tanks are fully modernized.”
Some tanks are even older and there are claims that museums have been raided.
This image shows the open-air military depot, housing dozens of Soviet-era tanks
More than 40 percent of the 3,840 tanks and military vehicles seen in Google Earth satellite images at the Vagzhanovo military equipment depot before the war have now been removed from storage, reports show.
T-54/T-55 vs. T-62: Reports from Russia suggest Vladimir Putin is taking Soviet-era tanks out of storage to bolster his heavy armor in Ukraine
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s old T-54s and the Cold War mainstay, the T-55, have been deployed.
The geriatric T-54 was originally produced by Stalin after World War II in 1946, but Putin appears to be sending an updated version from the early 1950s into the war – some 70 years old, the same age as today’s dictator.
They are a far cry from the hypersonic missiles he brags about.
The main tanks used by both Russian and Ukrainian units in the ongoing war are those of the T-72 family, who were also engineers in the Soviet era.
However, compared to the ones that come out of storage, they boast more modern features and have been spotted with several upgrades.
That said, in recent months Ukraine has taken delivery of state-of-the-art western main battle tanks such as the German Leopard 2, the British Challenger 2 and the American-made M1 Abrams – all of which are major upgrades to the T-72.
These pose a major challenge to Russia’s older models.
Russia has also boasted more modern main battle tanks in the form of the T-80 and T-14 Armata.
While Russian state media claimed the latter had been used in the war in Ukraine, reports suggested they were quickly withdrawn as Russia’s flagship tank rollout was plagued with setbacks.
Meanwhile, Russia has suffered significant losses to its heavy armor Oryx military blog – which counts battlefield losses based on visual confirmation, thus giving a minimum figure – reporting that Russia has lost about 2,200 tanks.
According to estimates from Ukraine, this figure is even higher.
Amid Russia’s significant losses of tanks and other military equipment, several reports have suggested that Putin is taking old tanks out of storage, with a video from March showing factory workers reusing the tanks.
And there is evidence that Russia is using its oldest models as driverless “kamikaze tanks” that can operate on “autopilot” loaded with explosives that act as self-propelled bombs.
Pictured: Russian engineers work on T-62 tanks and other hardware as Vladimir Putin works to strengthen the military vehicles available to his armed forces in Ukraine
A video showed an apparently reborn Soviet tank used last month in an attempt to massacre Ukrainian positions.
In this case, it hit a landmine and exploded near Marinka in the Donetsk region before reaching the enemy.
An eyewitness who saw a train carrying the ancient tanks in Voronezh compared them to extinct woolly mammoths.
‘T-55! They’ve run out of new tanks and they’re sending junk.’