March 30, 2026: Russia can no longer afford its war in Ukraine. Since 2022 Russia has spent nearly $700 billion and lost 1.3 million troops, with over a million Russian men fleeting the country to avoid the war. There is a labor shortage and a growing number of protests against the war and its human losses and growing poverty. The costs keep growing, from $102 billion in 2022 to nearly $170 billion this year. Russian gains in 2023 were 600 square kilometers or o.1 percent of Ukraine. In 2024, 3,500 sq. kilometers or; 0.55 percent of Ukraine while losing 431,000 soldiers. In 2025, 4,500 sq. kilometers. or 0.75 percent of Ukraine was gained while 418,000m soldiers were lost. Since late 2025 Ukrainian forces have been on the offensive, regaining territory and by the end of 2026 much if not most of the Russian 2023-25 gains may be lost.

There have been other significant losses. Four years of fighting in Ukraine has destroyed the Russian tank force. This was unexpected, as was the Russian inability to replace their tank losses. Ukraine’s success against Russian tanks and armored vehicles revived predictions that tanks were obsolete. Tanks are still relevant, and the Russian losses were the result of poor employment of armored units as well as design features of Russian tanks that make them much more vulnerable than Western tanks like the American M1, German Leopard or Israeli Merkava.

Most Russian armored vehicles were lost while they were on the move, or stationery without adequate infantry support. The first Russian armored units going into Ukraine were told the population would be friendly or neutral. The reality was that the Ukrainians were well armed, hostile, and using tactics the Russians were unaware of and unprepared to deal with. As a result, thousands of Russian vehicles were destroyed or captured in the first month, most of them armored, including some of the most modern Russian tanks plus some ancient models taken from storage facilities for obsolete tanks that might be useful in an emergency. The Ukraine War proved to be that emergency.

Most of the Ukrainian anti-tank weapons were portable and carried into combat by teams of soldiers, of whom many were recent volunteers with no military experience at all and only a few days of training, rather like most Russian soldiers since the war started. The few days training they received usually began with carrying ammo, including anti-tank missiles and projectiles, plus instruction in how to obey instructions, take cover, etc. Sometimes volunteers were selected for combat duty because they knew the area where their anti-tank team would be operating. These hastily trained anti-tank teams suffered far fewer casualties than the Russians, even after the Russians became aware of the ambush risk, because the Russians had little if any training against attack by man-carried anti-tank weapons, let alone the ability to actually do it. Additionally, most of the Ukrainians’ Western-provided portable anti-tank weapons could accurately hit moving vehicles 300 or more meters away. The Javelin and NLAW guided missiles were fire and forget. That meant once the operator had accurately aimed at a target and launched the missile, the guidance system in the missile would follow the target until the missile hit.

NLAWs have a max range of 600 meters and Javelins are 2,500 meters. The Ukrainians were creative with their ambush tactics and the Russians who survived them noted that the Ukrainian were always better prepared and one or more steps ahead of Russian commanders. The Russians were losing six dead for every Ukrainian fighter and that included soldiers killed by rocket and ballistic missile attacks far from the combat zone.

Russian armored vehicles had some unique vulnerabilities not found on their NATO counterparts. One was the use of an autoloader for the main tank gun, usually a 125mm. The autoloader required there to be a magazine of shells in the crew compartment, which was the turret, where there were also additional shells used by the crew to refill the autoloader magazine. If any anti-tank weapon penetrated into the crew compartment, especially the turret, one or more of the 125mm shells were exposed and likely to explode. If one shell went, all those near the autoloader did as well. This usually meant the turret would literally be blown off the tank and the entire crew killed. Javelin and NLAW were also designed to attack the less protected top of the turret or body of the tank, which at the very least destroyed the engine or wounded some of the three-man crew. And the primary Russian infantry armored vehicle was the BMP, which was poorly protected against any anti-tank weapon.

Trucks carrying supplies, especially fuel, ammo or personnel were even more vulnerable. Machine-gun fire or a hand grenade would destroy or disable a truck. Ukrainian forces concentrated on Russian supply trucks and that meant Russian forces were chronically short of essential supplies.

Ukrainian forces had lots of armored vehicles, most of them Russian models improved by the Ukrainians. Tank tactics used by Ukrainians were more practical and more likely to overcome defenders, plus Ukrainian civilians were everywhere and generally eager to let their troops know what was going on in the area.

Meanwhile, Russia is trying to rebuild its tank forces. That will take a long time because Russian production facilities, even when operating round-the-clock, cannot obtain sufficient supplies of components to produce more than a few hundred tanks a year.

The Russian economy is a wreck. Their major ally Iran has been lost to a war with Israel and the United States. Russian leader Vladimir Putin refuses to withdraw from Ukraine because he bet his career, and possibly his life, on winning a victory in Ukraine.