Every year, the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow showcases the latest in Russian weapons systems – and this year’s, of course, had special meaning. The weaponry looked good on the parade ground – but how well are Russia’s high-tech weapons performing on the battlefield?
As always in Russia’s Victory day parade, tanks and armoured vehicles took centre stage. Most prominent among them was the T-14 Armata. Western analysts have been poring with some degree of trepidation over this system since 2015 when the tank first appeared. It is a significant advance over all previous Russian tanks, which were and are adaptations of old Soviet designs.
The trouble from the Russian army perspective is that there are very few of these tanks available. Credible Russian reports indicate that the programme is suffering problems with production and complexity and “is a hostage to the many new technologies in it”. As if technical problems were not enough, the company making the Armata is in financial trouble.
If all goes according to plan – rare enough in any military procurement programme – this tank will begin full-scale production this year, too late for this phase of the war in Ukraine.
Other, less formidable tanks were also prominent, notably the various modernised versions of the T-72, which have taken heavy losses in Ukraine, especially from anti-tank missiles supplied by the US, UK and other European countries. Rather more concerning to Russian generals in the longer term was the first reported loss in combat of the T-90M, the most formidable tank in Russian combat service today, which also made an appearance at the parade.
Trundling after the tanks and assorted armoured vehicles on the parade was the Uran-9 autonomous combat vehicle. This is designed to work without an operator on roads or, in more difficult terrain, as a remotely controlled tank.
It also appears to have been tested in Syria, where there were serious issues with the remote control systems, which were apparently unable to find or hit enemy targets at anything like a useful range. The Uran-9 is probably a decade or more from being an effective weapons system.
Equally worrying for Russian planners is that having fired well over 2,000 PGMs, their stock is running low. As a US defence official said this week:
They’re having inventory issues with precision-guided munitions and they’re having trouble replacing PGMs, and we do believe that the sanctions and the export controls, particularly when it comes to … electronic components, has had an effect on the Russian defense industrial base and their ability to restock PGMs.
This is bad news for Russia in the medium and long term. As a result, Russia is using ageing munitions that are less reliable, less accurate and more easily intercepted.