Russian Battle Tank Attrition Completely Reversed - Top Western Analysts
Today the leading pro-Ukrainian analyst for Russian armor tracking in the war has released a fascinating new article which serves as an update on the long-debated topic of Russian armor losses, inventories, restoration capacities, etc.
Despite being a heavily pro-Ukrainian slanted author, in the new analysis Jompy finally puts to bed the long-held theory that Russia will run out of armor with the final conclusive point that Russia’s current tank fleet is larger than its pre-war force:
New domestic production and refurbishment have likely made Russia’s current tank fleet larger than its prewar force, but overall vehicle quality has dropped sharply.
Jompy has been the chief analyst bringing to bear satellite photos of the dozens of Russian tank storage sites spread throughout the country, meticulously analyzing and counting the gradual depletion of visible hulls over the course of the war, and transforming the information into large databases and projections.
Let’s take a brief look at his numbers.
He begins by stating that Russia’s Soviet-era armor reserves have been “prematurely declared depleted” many times since the onset of the war. He supplies this chart showing losses per year, by armor type—note how virtually all equipment losses have shrunk by 2025, and are reportedly even smaller in 2026:
Tank losses in particular have shrunk from averaging almost 4 per day, or ~120+ per month, in 2022, to 1.4 per day in 2025. In 2026, they are reportedly as low as 0.4 per day or less.
Here’s WarSpotting’s latest figures for April 2026, showing a mere 10 Russian tanks destroyed for the entire month, which would track for just barely over 100 per year:
Jompy’s report details how Russia continues to manufacture up to 250 T-90Ms per year, which alone now surpass the rate of Russian tank losses. That doesn’t count the refurbished older tanks Russia continues to pump out in droves.
The report states that Russia has mostly exhausted T-72Bs for restoration and is switching to older and less ideal T-72As:
Recently, an investigation by Frontelligence Insight discovered that UVZ was planning on switching their T-72 efforts from T-72Bs, pretty much now exhausted in storage, to older T-72As, until now untouched by the Russian reactivation efforts, and in quantities that fairly match the number of T-72As that were in storage right before they started shipping them to UVZ. The months prior to that Russia had already taken around 50% (from 900 to 461 units left in storage) of their T-72A stockpile from storage bases to UVZ. And recently we have indeed started to see visual confirmation of refurbished and modernized T-72As back to service in Russian formations. All in all, expanding refurbishment efforts to T-72As opens up a further thousand tank hulls that Russia could eventually press back to their ground forces.
But just as we had predicted here years ago, Russia has effectively staunched its armor bleed-through and is now producing more new main battle tanks (T-90Ms, not even counting refurbs of older tanks) than it is losing. However, the legacy Soviet stockpiles of older hulls have hit bottom of the barrel reserves in the process.
During the years when the Ukrainian side wailed that Russia would completely run out of armor, I stated repeatedly that this is simply impossible because the Russian general staff operates on a heavy doctrinal basis of mathematics and future projections and would never allow that to happen, as it would simply curtail armor usage on the front to the point where losses would balance out with new production.
Granted, for IFVs (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) this has not yet fully happened given that new production of BMP-3Ms and BMD-4Ms is estimated at a combined ~600 per year or so, and losses of IFVs are still alleged to be in the ~1,300 range per year, as per the earlier chart. But the same will eventually happen here as well.
Two of the report’s concluding points:
To sum it up, this will be the last great war fought with Soviet-era armor. Russia is managing to reform their core armored formations, but there are some caveats:
*1. Clearly they are thinking in the long run, predicting that eventually a solution to the current drone saturated environment will be reached that allows them to bring back fast, mobile warfare via armored vehicles, and preserving and rebuilding the mechanized corps in the meantime. They could also be forced to go back to mechanized warfare if Russia fails to meet its recruitment target for this year.
*2. Even if new production has surged (it is estimated that Russia barely produced 60–70 T-90Ms in 2022, rising to 140–180 in 2023), it probably has by now reached its maximum capacity and in itself won’t be able to replenish all those huge fields of Soviet tanks accumulated over decades of war economy production.
As for the first point above, recall that we learned long ago that Russia ships virtually all newly built T-90Ms to “rear” formations rather than to the front. This explanation seems to match the reasoning: that Russia is likely reconstituting a modernized tank force in the rear for the future eventuality that some solution to drones could eventually be found, wherein tanks would again regain initiative.
Another note on that topic from a different report claims that the Armata is effectively dead and that the Russian Armed Forces will instead continue to pour all resources into improvements to the T-90M program:
❗️— The end of the Armata era: —- a new Russian tank will be created on the basis of the T-90M
A new generation Russian tank can be built NOT on the T-14 Armata platform, but on the basis of the deeply modernized T-90M tank.
Alexander Potapov, General Director of Uralvagonzavod said.
According to him, real combat experience has seriously changed the requirements for modern tanks. Now robotization, digital control systems and the integration of artificial intelligence elements are coming to the fore.
The T-90M “Breakthrough” today is considered the most developed and mass-produced modern Russian tank. The machine is already used in the troops, is well known to the industry and has been used in combat in a real conflict.
In addition, the maintenance infrastructure of the T-90 has long been created, and the cost of production is noticeably lower than that of the T-14 Armata. That is why many technologies originally developed for the Armata can now be adapted to the T-90M platform.
🔻Required features in the tank of the future
The main feature of the new generation of MBT will be deep digitalization. The tank should turn into part of a single combat network with a constant exchange of information between drones, reconnaissance and other combat vehicles.
Elements of artificial intelligence will be able to help the crew analyze threats, recognize targets and speed up decision-making. Much attention is also paid to the automation of guidance and fire control systems.
A separate area will be protection against FPV drones and strikes from above - these are the threats that have become one of the main problems of modern armored vehicles.
▪️Against the backdrop of new statements, the question of the future of the T-14 Armata is increasingly raised. A few years ago, this tank was called a new generation platform, but now the emphasis is gradually shifting towards cheaper and more serial solutions.
the Armata itself won’t disappear completely. Some of its technologies, including digital systems, protective equipment and automation elements, can be used in upgraded versions of the T-90M.
▪️Tanks, which until recently were called the main victims of the drone era, can take on a new role on the modern battlefield. Instead of abandoning heavy armored vehicles, engineers will create active protection systems capable of automatically destroying UAVs, said military expert Yaroslav Dymchuk.
According to him, the next stage may be full-fledged anti-drone complexes with radars, sensors and automatic turrets.
▪️The tactics of using armored vehicles are also changing. Tanks are increasingly used as mobile firing platforms and a means of combating heavy equipment, rather than as a classic means of breaking through defenses.
At the same time, bad weather again becomes an advantage for heavy vehicles, as it worsens the performance of aerial reconnaissance and drones. — 1.ru
Mostly it’s all a moot point, because for now the role of tanks has receded deeply into the background in relation to the rising significance of battlefield ISR and integrated battlefield management systems as a backbone to drone forces.
Getting back to Jompy’s analysis, in a related tweet he refuted a pro-Ukrainian graphic showing Russian tank losses via percentage, explaining it’s irrelevant given that Russian total monthly tank losses are now effectively in the single digits:
Also, it should be noted that Jompy’s analysis concludes Russia currently fields a larger tank fleet than pre-war, but the actual old hull reserves in storage have gotten pretty low, as per this updated chart:
It poses an interesting ‘chicken-or-the-egg’ question regarding the shift in Russia’s tactics in the past year or so. One argument could be that Russia gradually phased out tank use as usable stored tank reserves approached minimums, and began to favor the now-famous motorcycle/ATV assaults and other ‘slow-drip’ infiltration tactics without use of heavy armor.
Conversely, it can be argued that the light infantry moto-attacks was a natural dispersion-tactic response to the proliferation of drones, and the tanks falling by the wayside merely coincided with the depletion of tank reserves. In other words, even if Russia had thousands more tanks, this theory would hold that Russia would still elect to sideline the tanks in favor of the newer light infiltration tactics, as necessity dictates.
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Since we’re on the topic of analyses from the pro-UA field, another interesting one has created buzz this past week from pro-UA mapping autismo extraordinaire Clement Molin. Even the pro-UA analysts are stunned by the continually improving accuracy of Russian UMPK glide bombs which are methodically extirpating Ukrainian hedgerow positions, particularly along the Gulyaipole axis on the border of Zaporozhye and Dnieperpetrovsk regions where Russia’s offensive operations are most active:
The Russian channel Two Majors chimes in with higher-rez close-ups showing the accuracy of the bombs precisely uprooting each hedgerow in turn, where Ukrainian pickets are typically emplaced—click to enlarge:
Ukrainian channels continue to complain about the high accuracy of Russian aerial bombs with universal planning and correction modules (UPCM).
Satellite images of the Zaporozhye front sector in the vicinity of Gulyaypole show traces of precise strikes on forest strips with firing positions and fortifications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The enemy's electronic warfare systems are not coping with their task.
The pictures show a systematic nature of target destruction on the front sector.
✨ Data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirm the increasing intensity of the use of bombs with UPCM by the Russian Aerospace Forces. In May 2026, they counted 7496❗️bombs dropped on the heads, i.e. about 241 per day, which is 8% more than in the previous month. This does not include the arrivals of UAVs and artillery.
It's hard to assess the scale of daily systematic work to ensure such a number of combat sorties of aviation per day. This is a titanic effort of the crews of frontline bombers, cover fighters, flight leaders, combat control officers, technicians, mechanics, engineers, dispatchers, drivers, specialists in logistics and many others, including our esteemed readers!
Note: for those who may be of the opinion these are 152mm artillery craters rather than, specifically, UMPK glide bombs, the author wrote an entire separate thread detailing his methodology on why he’s certain these are the much-larger bombs:
Many have noted how the methodical accuracy of these strikes proves without a doubt that Ukraine’s casualties must be lopsided to Russia’s favor.
From the Ukrainian Officer channel:
Despite the heralding of the Drone Age, there is simply “no replacement for displacement”, or in this case ordnance size. That vast amount of bombs precisely tracing Ukrainian field positions is inarguably producing vast amounts of disproportionate casualties.
Let us recall that a month ago it was announced that Russian Su-34s are now being equipped with 6 x glide bombs over the usual 4, which itself was an upgrade over the earlier war standard of 2.
Here the latest standard loadout can be seen:
Notably, the Su-34s carry two Fab-500 UMPK glide bombs on each wing (4 total), and 2 of the new smaller UMPB glide bombs underneath the belly.
Video of such a package being launched:
For a laugh, let’s recall what Forbes tried to feed us just last month about Russia’s “useless” glide bombs:
Western press outlets, as ever, proving themselves to be on the cutting edge of battlefield analysis.
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Russia has no inventory or production problems. But I know who does.
Lone suicide bombers brought down the twin towers. Ukraine can continue to take pot shots at Russia until western europe drops its support, which is coming sooner than folks think. The denouement is a ticking financial bomb in the heart of euroland, not any action in Ukraine itself, although that is where the real consequence will land.