Putin's tank production goals are delusional

 ISW:

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Putin’s stated goals for Russian tank production in 2023 and comparisons with Ukrainian tank stocks also disregard Russia’s limited industrial capacity to produce more advanced tanks rapidly and ignore Russian tank losses on the battlefield. Russia’s sole tank production factory, UralVagonZavod, reportedly produces 20 tanks a month.[6] It would take over six years to meet Putin’s goal at that rate. UralVagonZavod is unlikely to expand production of modern tanks such as the T-90 rapidly enough to meet these targets in nine months due to international sanctions and shortages of skilled labor.[7] The Kremlin will thus likely continue to pull archaic tanks from storage and may attempt to refurbish some older tanks to meet the stated quota. A Kremlin pundit stated on a live broadcast on March 25 that Russia would pull old T-34 tanks from storage and monuments if needed for the war effort while attempting to justify Russia’s recent deployments of the T-54 and T-55 tanks to the frontlines.[8] These tanks are not comparable to modern Abrams, Challenger, or Leopard tanks, or even to T-72s, in either armament or armor protection.

Even Putin’s announced (and unrealistic) production targets are actually close to the minimum level required to replace Russian battlefield losses. Russia has reportedly been losing 150 tanks per month and so would need to produce 1,350 tanks in the next nine months merely to remain at current levels.[9]

Putin’s observations also ignore the fact that the West has been providing Ukraine with smaller numbers of technologically advanced systems in part to offset the requirement to send masses of ammunition and equipment. Western militaries have historically held lower stocks of conventional artillery rounds, for example, because they rely on precision long-range fires such as the HIMARS systems the US has provided Ukraine. The Ukrainian military and its Western backers can confidently expect that loss rates in tank duels between M1s, Leopards, and Challengers, on the one hand, and T-55s, T-62s, or even T-72s, on the other, will be far from one-to-one. The US military, after all, has repeatedly demonstrated the relative effectiveness of M1s and T-72s on the battlefields of Iraq.

Putin’s comments are an information operation designed to revive the aura of Soviet-era military industry and massed forces. They do not reflect current Russian realities or the balance of economic power or military industrial capacity between Russia and the collective West.
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If Putin is engaged in trying to buck up Russian morale with unrealistic production numbers it will be at best a short-term objective as the reality sinks in over the months ahead.  The reality is that even before the introduction of western tanks to the conflict, western anti-tank weapons were decimating Russian tanks to the point that some of the Russian crews were abandoning their tanks.  While the war may be stretching western production of ammo, the situation in Russia is even worse.

See, also:

Russia faces shrinking middle class, rising inequality, study finds

Russia's middle class will shrink as social inequality grows over coming years, an economic study conducted by Russian experts suggested, as sanctions against Moscow and limited growth potential scupper development prospects.

The study, published this week, presents four possible scenarios for how Russians' living standards will change between now and 2030 from experts from the Social Policy Institute at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, one of Russia's leading educational establishments.

The study, based on a 2022 survey of experts from economic institutions, businesses and public organisations, states that only a combination of global economic growth and an easing of sanctions on Russia, imposed by the West because of what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, can improve real incomes and reduce poverty.
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And:

 Ukraine says Bakhmut situation is stabilising, Putin plays down tank shortage

Ukrainian forces have managed to blunt Russia's offensive in and around the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, where the situation is stabilising, commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy said on Saturday.

Separately, Britain's defence ministry said the months-long Russian assault on the city had stalled, mainly as a result of heavy troop losses.

Military experts say there are clear signs Russia is running short of equipment, particularly heavy tanks.
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As well as promising more tanks Putin also reiterated his criticism of British plans to supply Ukraine with battle tank ammunition that contained depleted uranium.

"Russia has, of course, something to respond with. We have, without exaggeration, hundreds of thousands, yes hundreds of thousands of such shells. We have not used them yet," he said.
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And:

 Russian soldiers are shocked by the 'horrible reality' in Ukraine and often regret going, says YouTuber who spoke to more than 200 after they were captured

Russia likes to portray its soldiers fighting in Ukraine as "strong and brave warriors," Ukrainian Youtuber Volodymyr Zolkin told Insider.

"But we are disclosing the truth," said Zolkin, describing his YouTube channel where he interviews prisoners of war captured by the Ukrainian army.

"We are showing soldiers who are lost, who don't know what they are fighting for, or where they were going. We are sharing their stories," he added. "No other project brings as much damage to Russian propaganda as ours."

Zolkin, a former lawyer, became a YouTube hit last March when he started posting interviews with captured Russian soldiers.
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And:

 Ukrainian forces strike deep into Kherson Oblast with cross-Dnipro raids

And:

 Russia to produce and modernise 1,600 tanks, Putin threatens

And:

 Russia wants demilitarised buffer zones in Ukraine, says Putin ally

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Former President Dmitry Medvedev, who casts himself as Putin's most publicly hawkish official, said Russia needed demilitarised corridors around the areas it is claiming - and which Ukraine says it will never accept Russian control of.

"We need to achieve all the goals that have been set to protect our territories, that is the territories of the Russian Federation," Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said in an interview with Russian media posted on Telegram.

We need to "throw out all the foreigners who are there in the broad sense of the word, create a buffer zone which would not allow the use of any types of weapons that work at medium and short distances, that is 70-100 kilometres, to demilitarise it," Medvedev said.

Russia would have to push further into Ukraine if such zones were not established, he said, taking Kyiv the capital or even the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Ukraine says it will never accept Russian occupation of its land.
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The Russian goals do not match their military's ability at this point and Russia has been actually weakened by its war in Ukraine. 

And:

The decline of Dmitry Medvedev

With the future unpredictable and rivalries growing ever sharper, no one dares step away from power

It’s a long time since Dmitry Medvedev was last considered a potential liberal hope for Russia. Most recently, after all, he has threatened to bomb any country that seeks to apply the International Criminal Court’s recent arrest warrant on Vladimir Putin and separately read a working group of the Military Industrial Commission a 1941 telegram from Stalin that threatened anyone who failed to meet their targets with being "smashing as criminals who disregard the honor and interests of the homeland." What is going on?
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