In A Flash, 300 Tanks Disappear From Russia's Long-Term Inventory

Forget about those rusty old T-64s

The 103rd Central Tank Reserve Base in Novosibirsk Oblast in 2021. Via T-90K

With one simple recalculation, the number of usable old tanks Russia has in long-term storage declines by 300, or roughly 13%.

That’s because more than 300 of the approximately 2,300 tanks left in the Kremlin’s nine main tank storage yards are 1970s-vintage T-64s. They’re not the oldest tanks in storage in Russia, but they are the least useful. And they’re very rusty.

Omitting most of the 450 T-64s from the tally of recoverable tanks reduces the long-term pool of tank hulls available to Russia’s two tank plants: Uralvagonzavod and Omsk.

Both factories produce most of their “new” tanks by installing new systems, and sometimes new turrets, in old hulls. It’s possible Uralvagonzavod builds a few new T-90Ms from scratch by welding together new hulls, but that’s expensive and delicate work that’s increasingly beyond UVZ’s means as the enterprise struggles with war-related sanctions and labor issues.

For now, Russia’s production of new tanks is largely constrained by its stockpile of old tanks. And that stockpile is probably a lot smaller than it might appear at first blush.