Satellite images have revealed a dramatic decline in Russia’s military equipment reserves at a key military training institute in Omsk, signalling growing logistical difficulties for the Russian army. The images, shared online by open source intelligence enthusiast @hizzo_jay, show the complete removal of stored tanks and armoured vehicles from the Omsk Tank Automotive Engineering Institute’s storage facility by April 2025.
In 2021, this location housed 120 tanks, 89 armoured personnel carriers, 41 infantry fighting vehicles and 54 MT 12 Rapira anti tank guns. The equipment had been kept under covers, suggesting it was in a relatively good state. But now, these military assets have vanished, leaving only a few trucks and BAT 2 engineering vehicles behind.
This institute is Russia’s only higher education centre for training engineers in the maintenance, repair and modernisation of armoured military vehicles. The removal of hardware from such a vital training ground reveals the strain on Russia’s ability to sustain its war machine. With battlefield losses mounting, the Russian army appears to be cannibalising its own educational facilities to keep operations going.
New research from the Resurgam and Viiskovyi Vishchun platforms, which analysed satellite data, shows the pace of tank restoration in Russia has slowed dramatically. Compared to 2022 levels, tank recommissioning has dropped between three point five and four times. This is likely due to the depletion of tanks in good technical condition. Between 2022 and 2025, Russia stripped more than 4,000 tanks from its reserves—over half of all tanks considered restorable.
While Russia removed thousands of tanks from storage each year in 2022 and 2023, only 342 were removed between February 2024 and February 2025. As of early 2025, only 3,463 tanks remain at main storage facilities, while 1,253 tanks are housed at repair factories. These numbers suggest a worrying trend for Russia: their accessible and repairable tank inventory is running out.
Factory yards, which once held these decommissioned vehicles, are now also thinning out. This indicates that Russia’s ability to restore equipment is falling behind its decommissioning rate.
Tank production tells a similar story. In 2022, Russia restored or produced up to 120 tanks per month. That number dropped to 90 by the end of 2023. Throughout 2024, the rate fluctuated between 44 and 75 tanks per month. By year’s end, it fell further to around 50 per month—no longer sufficient to offset battlefield losses.
By early 2025, the figure dropped to between 30 and 35 tanks per month, and experts warn it could fall even further. A significant factor is the dwindling supply of T 80 tanks suitable for refurbishment. According to the British International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia managed to produce just 164 T 90M tanks between 2022 and 2024—roughly 80 per year. That rate is far too low to compensate for combat losses.
In monetary terms, these losses and manufacturing shortages are severe. A modern tank like the T 90M can cost around 4 million US dollars (approximately £3.1 million). With thousands of tanks lost or stripped, Russia is facing billions of pounds worth of losses—both financially and militarily.
