Well This Is Embarrassing... Russia’s Annual Victory Day Parade Featured Just One 80-Year-Old Tank
Up to twenty tanks should’ve made an appearance, but they’re likely strewn in pieces across Ukraine.
Russia held its annual Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9.
The parade is typically used by Russia to showcase its military strength, with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles driving in formation.
This year, only a single World War II-era T-34 medium tank participated in the parade, while entire types of armored vehicles from previous parades were missing.
Every year, Russia holds a military parade to commemorate its victory in World War II over Nazi Germany. The Victory Day parade typically doubles as an event designed to showcase Russian military strength and features a dozen or more modern tanks, plus numerous other armored vehicles.
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But this year’s parade saw just one lonely World War II-era tank rumble through Red Square—a vivid illustration of just how serious Russia’s losses in Ukraine have hit the Russian Ground Forces.
The Incredible Shrinking Parade
During the parade on May 9 in Moscow, Russian soldiers, sailors, and airmen marched on foot past reviewing stands full of Russian political leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, veterans of previous wars, VIPs, and foreign military attachés. The parade was relatively short by the standard of previous parades, and unlike previous shows there was no aerial component, which typically showcases Russian Aerospace Forces fighters, bombers, and helicopters flying in formation over the parade grounds.
Here’s a video of this year’s parade, via The South China Morning Post:
In 2021, the parade featured over 200 fighting vehicles of all types. Twenty main battle tanks participated in the parade, the equivalent of two Russian tank companies, including T-90 tanks, T-80BVM, and T-72B3 tanks. It also included BMP-2 and BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, Pantsir and Tor short-range air defense vehicles, and the TOS-1 flamethrower vehicle.
Yesterday’s parade was estimated by one observer to include less than 100 fighting vehicles. And only one tank, a World War II-era T-34/85 medium tank, represented the entirety of the Russian tank corps.
The parade also featured about a dozen Tigr armored scout vehicles, a BTR-82A wheeled infantry fighting vehicle, three new Bumerang wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, S-400 long range surface-to-air missile systems, and an 8x8 transporter erector launcher vehicle for the Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile.
Missing from the parade were any modern tanks, the BMP series of infantry fighting vehicles, artillery vehicles, any short- or medium-range surface-to-air missile systems, and TOS-1 flamethrower vehicles. Russian parade officials did not offer an explanation for the downgraded parade, and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not mention the lack of armored vehicles or the missing air parade in his delivered remarks.
The Lone Tank
The sole tank in the parade was a T-34/85 medium tank, which was the last production model of the vaunted T-34 series of tanks. Introduced in 1944, the T-34/85, was the main tank of the Soviet Army in the latter half of the war, participating in the final battles in Germany in the spring of 1945. The Soviet Union ceased T-34/85 production in 1946.
All of this is to say that the tank in the parade was very old.
The parade tank was likely one of nearly three dozen Soviet tanks recently reimported from Laos. The 30 T-34/85s, built in the Soviet Union in 1944, had been transferred to Laos in the 1990s to serve in the Laotian Army. The tanks were shipped back to Russia in 2019 with the intent of using them, Russian state media reported, “in May 9 V-Day parades in different Russian cities, for updating and expanding museum expositions and making films about World War II.”
Ironically, the T-34 tank was originally developed and built at the Kharkov Locomotive Factory, in modern day Kharkiv, Ukraine. Although one Ukrainian commentator on social media stated that the parade tank was actually built in Ukraine, the Kharkov factory was evacuated in 1942 to Nizhny Tagil, east of the Ural Mountains, ahead of the Nazi advance.
Horrendous Losses
Where did Russia’s vaunted tank and armored vehicle fleet go? It went to Ukraine. Many tanks are undoubtedly serving there now, both with Russian Ground Forces (Army) and Wagner units, trying to force a breach in the Ukrainian lines. Others are being held back in anticipation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Exactly how many tanks are engaged in combat in Ukraine is unknown.
Observers of the conflict can however account for 1,937 Russian tanks, 2,137 infantry fighting vehicles, 309 armored personnel carriers, 107 surface-to-air missile systems, and 784 artillery pieces. That’s the number of each verified as lost by Oryx, a team of open-source researchers that have studied imagery of destroyed, damaged, abandoned, and captured Russian vehicles. Even worse, the total only reflects vehicles photographed and verified as lost—the true number is almost certainly higher.
This level of equipment losses is unprecedented in a modern army. The United Kingdom operates 227 tanks, and Germany 320. The active duty U.S. Army fields 12 armored brigade combat teams with a total of 1,044 M1 Abrams tanks and 1,656 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). In other words, Russia has lost twice as many tanks and IFVs as the entire number in operation worldwide in the U.S. Army.
The Takeaway
The invasion of Ukraine has been an unmitigated disaster for Russia, and nowhere was it more apparent than this week in Red Square. The loss of nearly 2,000 tanks in just over a year of war has severely depleted the Russian Ground Forces’ tank corps, and for some reason the Russian government put the consequences on full display for the entire world to see. At this rate, the 2024 Victory Day parade will consist of infantry marching on foot and nuclear weapons, because that is all Russia will have left.
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