Military Expert: Russia Can Fight Ukraine for Another Year, But Lacks Tanks

February 13, 2025 | 11:40 am

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Russia has what it takes to fight in Ukraine for at least another year and retain the battlefield initiative, but is struggling to replace its destroyed tanks, experts at a leading security research organisation said on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, as quoted by Reuters.

In what has become a war of attrition now approaching three years, both sides have suffered heavy casualties as Moscow’s forces slowly but surely advance while the scale and nature of future US military assistance to Kyiv remains unclear under US President Donald Trump.

For now at least, Russia is in a stronger position than Ukraine on the battlefield, although Kyiv has seriously reduced the space for maneuver of Russia’s once formidable Black Sea Fleet, experts at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said.

“(With) attrition being a major factor on the ground, Russia has the initiative and Ukraine is fighting a defensive ground battle,” said IISS senior land warfare analyst Ben Barry.

"Without a ceasefire, the war is likely to look much the same over the next few months. Bloodier ground fighting with very high casualties on both sides. If Russia wants to prolong the war, I think it has the human, equipment and logistical resources to continue doing so for the rest of the year."

Trump has said he wants to end the war as quickly as possible, although it is unclear how he intends to do so. Ukraine says it needs European and US help to ensure its security. Russia says it wants full control of the four Ukrainian regions it claims as its own, something Kyiv rejects, and for Ukraine to remain outside NATO.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of not taking peace talks seriously.

In its annual assessment of its military capabilities, the IISS said Moscow's total defence spending was higher than Europe's in purchasing power parity terms.

The IISS also said Russia also appeared to be better able to maintain the size of its military than Ukraine.

"While Russia appears to be maintaining its troop numbers, evidence suggests that Ukraine, which generally keeps its casualty figures secret, has suffered a serious decline in manpower - with many ground units severely undermanned," the report said.

Ukraine's Defence Ministry this week launched a recruitment drive to attract young men aged 18 to 24 to serve for a year in the military in an attempt to address the manpower problem.

Tank Losses

Russia, the report said, has a serious tank and armoured vehicle problem that means it is losing more personnel on the battlefield.

Moscow lost 1,400 tanks by 2024 and is struggling to build new ones at a rate fast enough to replace its old ones despite ramping up production of advanced models such as the T-90M tank.

"Russia is increasingly trading quality for quantity to support its war effort," the report said.

"The scale of its equipment losses in the fight against Ukraine means that, in order to keep units equipped, it is having to reduce its stockpiles of Soviet-era weaponry."

That has left Moscow reverting to a small number of 1950s-vintage armored personnel carriers and 1960s-vintage tanks, the IISS said, estimating that Russia has lost a total of 4,400 main battle tanks in the war so far.

“The equipment remaining in storage may allow Russia to sustain its current level of losses in the short term, but a significant number of these platforms will require extensive and expensive repairs,” the report said.

Henry Boyd, the institute’s senior research fellow for military capabilities, said Russia would need to significantly expand production of new armored vehicles or look to imports.

Another problem for Russia, said Nigel Gould-Davies, a Russia specialist at the same research center, is that the current trajectory of the Russian economy — which he said suffers from “fundamental monetary imbalances” after the war — is unsustainable “in the long term.”

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