In an intelligence update posted on Twitter, the ministry said Russia is “mobilizing reserve forces from across the country and massing them near Ukraine for future offensive operations,” and added that many of the new infantry units “likely deploy” MT-LB armored vehicles, which Russia has “long considered unsuitable for most front-line infantry transport roles”. “Originally designed in the 1950s as a tractor to tow artillery, it has very limited armor and mounts only one machine gun for protection,” the ministry said. The UK MoD went on to say that Russia’s “first-echelon strike units” had comparable armored vehicles “up to 33mm”, “powerful” cannons and anti-tank missile launchers. “Despite President Putin’s claim on July 7, 2022 that the Russian military has ‘not even started’ its efforts in Ukraine, many of its reinforcements are ad hoc teams deployed with outdated or inappropriate equipment,” the ministry concluded. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment. The UK Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that as the Russian military massed reinforcements near Ukraine, many of its troops were being deployed in “ad hoc groups” and equipped with “obsolete or inappropriate” equipment. Above, the central square of Trostyanets, Ukraine, now a vast field of destroyed BMPs and Russian tanks on April 21. Gaelle Girbes In a separate intelligence briefing in May, the UK Ministry of Defense claimed that Russia had lost a large number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Ukraine and added that the country is likely to see a “shortage” of vehicles, “exacerbated by restrictions to its domestic production capacity resulting from sanctions’. In late June, the UK ministry said that Ukrainian forces “continue to disrupt Russian command and control with successful strikes deep behind Russian lines” and that Russian armed forces are “increasingly disappearing”. It also said that the Russian military is accepting “a level of degraded combat effectiveness, which is probably unsustainable in the long term.” In an article last month, John Dobson, the former UK Naval Attaché in Moscow, argued that Russia’s failures during the war will lead to the “death” of its arms industry. “Russia’s general sales pitch for its weapons has always been that they are cheaper and easier to maintain than Western alternatives…But this pitch may no longer be effective for many countries that have seen losses and failures of Russian equipment in the field of battle,” said Dobson. He wrote. He added that experts have estimated that Russia has lost about 1,000 tanks, 50 helicopters and 400 artillery pieces.
