Bild: Because of the slowness of Western countries, Russia is increasing its advantage in tanks and infantry fighting vehicles

The Ukrainian army's counteroffensive has been going on for 13 weeks. During this time, the Armed Forces, attacking in the south and east of the front, have made some progress in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, liberating 12 small settlements.

According to BILD military observer Julian Repke, the modest successes come at a high price – losses of personnel and both Ukrainian and Western equipment. During the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost several hundred pieces of military equipment, including at least four Stryker infantry fighting vehicles, 20 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, up to 15 Leopard tanks, and more than 100 MRAP wheeled armored vehicles.

Some of this equipment can still be repaired and sent back to the front, but it requires removing the vehicles from the battlefield, which is currently impossible due to Russian drones and constant artillery shelling.

The losses of the Russian side in equipment are also significant, so the Kremlin is changing its tactics in this regard. If earlier this year the Russian military leadership sent old Soviet tanks to Ukraine (such as T-62, produced more than 60 years ago), in recent months new equipment has been arriving at the front. Currently, the Russian military industry produces about 20 modern T-72B3 and T-90M tanks per month, all of which are immediately sent to Ukraine.

In parallel, the Russian government has launched a large-scale program to modernize old tanks: first of all, it concerns T-72s – there are about 7,000 of these tanks left in Russia from the Soviet era. Thus, this year the Russian army can count on 700 more new tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.

At the same time, Western countries have not delivered a single modern combat tank to Ukraine since January 2023, and less than 100 of the 300 promised infantry fighting vehicles have been delivered to the Armed Forces.

Background. The day before, Politico wrote that Ukraine would receive the first ten Abrams tanks in September.