An update on military aid received by Ukraine has revealed significant changes in the balance of heavy weapons after more than 16 months since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The German Institute for the World Economy in Kiel updated its Ukraine Support Tracker database and reported that since the beginning of the war, Ukraine’s partners have delivered 471 new tanks, with 286 more to come.
The new figures, combined with estimates of lost or captured equipment by the open-source intelligence group Oryx, show that Ukraine’s tank fleet has increased since the start of the invasion last year, while Russia’s has been halved. The analysts also noted a narrowing of the gap in the number of artillery and MLRS.
The data on tanks coincides with parliamentary testimony recently given by the Chief of the UK Defence Staff, Anthony Radakin. “Russia has lost almost half of its army’s combat capability,” said Admiral Radakin. – “Last year, it produced 10 million artillery shells, but now it can produce 1 million shells a year at best. It also lost 2,500 tanks, but can produce about 200 tanks a year.”
According to Oryx, which records only those losses it can confirm, 2,082 Russian tanks have been destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. And according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual Military Balance, Russia started the full-scale invasion with 3,417 tanks.
Of course, there is some uncertainty surrounding these figures, as there are significant difficulties in collecting data from open sources, and it is not known exactly how many tanks and artillery shells Russia has produced or decommissioned.
However, according to Johann Michel, a ground warfare specialist at the Institute for Strategic Studies, Ukraine passed the first year of the war with roughly the same number of heavy weapons as at the beginning, which is not the case with Russia.
Updated data from the Institute for the World Economy for the period from 25 February to 31 May show that aid pledges were significantly lower than in winter, despite some large aid packages from Germany and the United States. At the same time, the share of military aid increased compared to financial and humanitarian pledges. Ukraine has reportedly not yet received 286 out of 757 tanks and 177 out of 556 155-mm and 152-mm howitzers.
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