It has even fewer now that it’s lost 100,000 of its best troops killed or wounded in Ukraine. But the Russian army never had enough trained infantry to screen its tanks.

Tanks are highly vulnerable to small teams of infantry packing precision-guided anti-tank missiles.Ī tank’s best defense against enemy infantry is. That brings the total T-90 inventory down to around 360, of which at least 50 now are around Svatove.

And after February, it lost at least 36 of the tanks in combat with Ukrainian forces. So in fact, the Russian army had just 400 T-90s before February. Which is why the Russian army increasingly relies on 1970s-vintage T-62s that also were in storage before the war, but which lack high-tech optics and electronics and therefore don’t degrade as fast as 1990s-vintage T-90s might. But 200 were in storage-and in cold, wet Russia, modern tanks with their delicate optics and electronics tend to degrade fast while not in routine use.

Before the current war, the Russians on paper had more than 600 T-90s. It’s an impressive feat for the Russian army to mass two battalions of T-90s. It’s the job of all those T-90s, along with a small number of the latest BMP-T tank-support vehicles, to stop the 92nd Mechanized Brigade. Now it’s got Severodonetsk in its sights.

Since the start of the current war in February, the brigade has fought, and won, a series of battles in and around Kharkiv Oblast just north of Svatove. The 92nd Mechanized Brigade is a volunteer unit with well-maintained T-64 tanks and BTR fighting vehicles.

Modern runssain battle tank