As Russia’s War Drags On, Its Military Equipment Gets Worse

Sep 26, 2023

Case in point: the latest Russian armored vehicle resurrected for the front line is ten years older than the first Ford Mustang.

One year into its invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Russia's Ground Forces increasingly resemble a traveling museum, with "new" replacement vehicles dating back to the mid-20th century. Armored vehicles such as the T-62 medium tank (seen above) and the BTR-50P armored personnel carrier are serving on the front line or headed that way, while Russia's new generation of Armata, Bumerang, and Kurganets fighting vehicles are missing in action.

Thanks to corruption, the two trend lines don't look good for the future of the Russian Army.

The year 1961 was famous for a lot of things: the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's was playing in movie theaters, and the average car cost $4,300. Nineteen sixty-one is also the year Russia's latest tank to serve in Ukraine, the T-62, first entered service.

The T-62 was the main Soviet tank in the middle Cold War years, from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. The T-62 was a low-slung tank with improved armor protection over the previous T-55 model, a larger 115-millimeter main gun, and a crew of four. Twenty thousand T-62s were produced for the Soviet Union and its allies, and the tank officially left service with the Russian Ground Forces in 2013, according to Globalsecurity.org.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 6 March 2023Find out more about Defence Intelligence: https://t.co/HPcqkaCGaq pic.twitter.com/1J60pMXGag

One year of war abruptly changed things. According to the Oryx blog, Russia has lost 1,807 tanks, including a handful of newly-built T-90 tanks and hundreds of older, updated T-64, T-72, and T-80 tanks.

T-62 tanks started to appear on the battlefield in July 2022, and as of now the U.K. Ministry of Defense believes even the vaunted 1st Guards Tank Army, gutted by losses in Ukraine, could receive the T-62. The T-62 is significantly overmatched by virtually every modern weapon system sent to Ukraine, including German Leopard 2 and British Challenger 2 tanks, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, and French AMX-10RC armored reconnaissance vehicles.

The BTR-50 was the Soviet Union's first tracked infantry transporter with overhead protection from exploding artillery shells. The BTR-50 can carry twenty soldiers, features barely over a half inch of steel armor, and is armed with a single 7.62-millimeter machine gun.

The BTR-50 first entered production in 1954, and production ceased in 1970—53 years ago. (By comparison, the Ford Mustang entered production in 1964.) The BTR-50 is so old that most Soviet soldiers who served in it are likely no longer alive. As an armored personnel carrier, it was designed in an era when Soviet infantry soldiers were required to dismount their vehicles and fight their way across the battlefield on foot; the BTR-50 would follow behind.

Thirteen millimeters of armor to the front, 10 millimeters to the flanks, and 7 millimeters on top make it practically just as vulnerable as an unarmored truck on today's battlefield. If today's Russian troops use it in the same manner as they would their larger, heavier, more modern infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-50s and their human payloads would quickly become casualties on the battlefield.

In September 2022, as Russian civilians flooded the Ground Forces’ ranks to bolster its numbers, pictures emerged on social media of AK-47 assault rifles handed out to the recent draftees. The AK-47 is the predecessor to the Russian Army's current issue AK-74M. The AK-47 uses an older 7.62x39 rifle round but is perfectly serviceable and functionally differs little from its descendant. An estimated one hundred million AK-47s have been made worldwide, and Russia must certainly have saved the best for its new wave of troops.

The reality was much different. At least some of the rifles handed out in the fall of 2022 were heavily rusted, with rotting wood furniture. Although the Avtomat Kalashnikova is known for superior reliability, the rifles were likely unserviceable. Draftees complained loudly about the terrible quality of the weapons, only to be told that, accompanying tanks into battle, they wouldn't even need their rifles.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Russia's brand-new tank, the T-14 Armata, was introduced in 2015. Russia was supposed to have 2,300 Armatas by 2025, suggesting that at least a thousand should be in service by now. Yet, as of March 2023 there is still no production line for the tank and few, if any, are in Russian Ground Forces service.

This story, of new Russian fighting vehicles introduced with great fanfare and turning into vaporware, has been repeated over and over again in recent years. Russia has lost a total of at least 2,300 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and armored personnel carriers (APCs) since the war started, most older vehicles designed 40 years ago. A new heavy infantry fighting vehicle based on the Armata, the T-15, is nowhere to be seen. Neither is the new Kurganets-25 IFV, which should replace the long-serving and obsolete BMP-1 and BMP-2 IFVs. The aging BTR-80 APC should have been replaced by the Bumerang APC.

One of the main lessons of the Ukraine War is that Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly felt his military was stronger and more capable than it actually was. Russia's military had $61.7 billion in 2020, a decent sum considering conscription lowers personnel costs and leaves more money for equipment. But where did the money go?

A May 2022 report by the Royal Armed Services Institute lays the blame squarely on corruption. Money is siphoned away from equipment, construction, training, and other official purposes and lines the pockets of government officials, industry, and military leaders. Equipment is stolen by lower ranks and sold online, even on eBay. Unit commanders buy cheap truck tires instead of quality ones and pocket the difference, and no one is the wiser unit the unit rolls into combat.

The design, development, and deployment of things like new tanks and infantry fighting vehicles is more difficult and expensive as corruption inflates costs, with everyone from raw materials suppliers to factories to army generals taking a cut.

Corruption is estimated to have cost the Russian government $89 billion in 2021, more than a third of Russia's state budget. This extends to all sectors of government but especially the military, where graft can be concealed behind the curtain of state secrets. The corrosive nature of corruption has not only hollowed out Russian society, it has hollowed out the Russian military at the absolute worst possible time, when it was committed to a fight it both couldn't win and wasn't allowed to lose.

Most modern militaries introduce newer and more equipment over time, particularly in wars. The Russian Army is being forced to do things backwards, reaching deeper and deeper into its arsenals for increasingly outdated equipment. The Russian Army of 2025 was supposed to have 2,300 Armata tanks—thanks to the corruption of Putin's kleptocracy, it will be lucky to have 2,300 serviceable tanks at all.

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle's articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.

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