I’ve heard the Russian economy is overheating and is going to have major problems by mid 2025 (interest rates already 20+% and home mortgage rate have hit a peak at 40%). I figured that would mean that the Russian war machine would start having massive problems by the end of 2025.
But the way Russia is pushing so hard, after a Trump victory and expected US support withdrawal and pressure to negotiate, makes me think they are trying to begin negotiation on Day 1 of a Trump presidency. Which I would infer means they are in a worse position than I expected and could have massive war machine problems by mid 2025.
If Ukraine was then able to, and did continue, fighting until the end of 2025, they may start making major gains in the war against the broken Russian war machine. Putin may call a second mobilization wave to slow the Ukrainians but that may be counterproductive by causing general unrest and protestation against the war.
They lost a lot at the beginning. Now they are left with what they can produce new and refurbish from storage.
I’ve seen estimates of this being 300 to 2000 tanks annually (1 to 6 tanks daily). Since they are in a big push right now they are likely using up their operational reserves that they built up over months.
So they can afford to lose more tanks than they “produce” daily, but how long they can keep up this attrition rate up is unclear. I’ve seen estimates that they have 3000ish tanks left in field/reserve/storage.
However, it’s unclear what condition these stored tanks are in. They likely used the newer tanks and those needing the least refurbishment first, leaving the only the dregs (old and heavily damaged) left.
Edit: added a couple clarifying words.