FROM TANKS TO LADA CARS! Russians Are Desperate as Last Armor Stockpiles Are Empty!

Today, Russian forces have seen their armored might dwindle to the point where Ladas and civilian vans have become their last resort in conducting vehicle assaults. This startling shift reveals not only the staggering attrition of their mechanized reserves but also a desperate gamble to keep their offensives alive.

Over the past three years, Russians have lost an immense number of armored vehicles due to their intensive and prolonged offensive efforts, with Ukrainian military sources reporting that Russians have lost over 10,000 tanks and 21,000 armored vehicles. 

Recent statistics also show that Russian civilian and all-terrain vehicles make up an increasingly high percentage of these losses, an explanation for which can be found in the example of the now-empty stockpile of MT-LB amphibious armored personnel carriers, as well as the dwindling stockpiles of everything else. 

Before the full-scale invasion, Russians had approximately 3,300 MT-LB vehicles in active service, with an additional two to 3,000 in reserve. Open-source researchers stated that over three years of intense fighting, geolocated footage confirmed the destruction of at least 1,483 of these vehicles. 

However, satellite images confirm that the storage locations of these vehicles are now empty, indicating that the actual number is likely double that, with the Russian pre-war stockpile completely emptied.  

This means that the iconic MTLB will soon vanish from Russian service with, no possibility of replacement in case of damage or destruction, as Russian stockpiles of other armored vehicles dwindle equally. In response, some Russian commanders have acted to conserve their decreasing reserves of armored vehicles at the expense of the lives of their soldiers who have to advance without sufficient armored support. 

Regular Russian soldiers on the ground are forced to seek alternatives to mechanized vehicles, as moving across the open fields is suicide in the age of drone warfare. 

Russians initially procured Chinese military transport vehicles to compensate; these light, all-terrain vehicles had superior mobility to Russian armored vehicles, but since they were unarmored, they were left vulnerable to artillery shrapnel and small arms fire, which led to even higher rates of losses. 

As these stockpiles drained even more rapidly, many Russian units resorted to conducting assaults in Soviet-era civilian vehicles, including Bukhanka vans and Lada cars, as their only means of transport. 

Russians conduct these assaults usually in combination with extensive artillery shelling of Ukrainian positions beforehand. This way, the Russians slightly improve their chances as they attempt to suppress the Ukrainian soldiers till the last possible moment before the assault group reaches their target positions to dismount. 

Unmodified Ladas can only carry small squads of up to four soldiers at a time, which are limited to carrying only combat-essential gear due to the cramped nature of the Ladas. This is why Russians already quickly started converting the Ladas into pickup trucks, with cages on the back where Russian soldiers could stand. The other widely used Russian vehicles, Bukhanka vans, can carry up to ten fully armed soldiers, and their four-wheel drive allows for enhanced maneuverability and off-road capabilities.

However, Russian shelling cannot suppress drone operators and artillery crews hidden deep in the rear, as these assaults are often dismantled by Ukrainian FPV kamikaze or reconnaissance drones correcting artillery fire on the assaulting Russian vehicles. Due to the lack of armor, even indirect artillery fire can eliminate whole squads of Russian soldiers through shrapnel flying hundreds of meters per second, or by simply igniting the exposed fuel compartments, as the Bukhanka vans have been noted to be akin to driving petrol bombs. 

Still, these civilian vehicles remain the only way Russians can quickly transport troops during an assault, with the alternative being to move the soldiers on foot, if the unit commander decides to save armored vehicles for a future offensive. 

Overall, the Russians have reached new lows, increasingly using civilian cars and vans to conduct their assault due to a shortage of armored vehicles, especially in the Pokrovsk direction, where their attrition rates are the highest as they continue to attempt assaults despite their depleted offensive capabilities. However, as the Russian forces in other parts of the frontline have and are suffering equally high losses, utilization of civilian cars for assault operations is increasingly occurring in other sections of the front as well, signaling a widespread deterioration of Russian combat capabilities.