Putin’s tanks heading to the junk yard new pictures reveal | World News
Trainloads of damaged Russian military equipment, including tanks, have been ferried to repair factories in recent days, heaping even more humiliation on Vladimir Putin.
The sheer number of crocked armoured vehicles indicate the scale of damage his forces are taking on the frontline in the Kyiv counteroffensive.
He has already had to deploy mothballed tanks designed in the Stalin and Khrushchev eras as he runs short of military equipment, like the T-54, T-55 and T-62 models.
But now he is having to try and patch up ravaged equipment before sending back out to the frontline, ignoring complaints from troops about the dire state of their weaponry.
The trains appear to be carrying the damaged tanks and vehicles to factories inside Russia, well away from the front-line.
This comes as even pro-war Russian commentators began to voice their worry over a concerted Ukrainian push in Zaporizhzhia region.
They warned of a ‘sharp escalation of the situation’ and ‘heavy, fierce battles’.
One warned: ‘The enemy threw a large number of armoured vehicles into the attack, as well as several groups of [troops numbering] up to four companies.’
Russia’s former space chief and deputy premier, Dmitry Rogozin, appointed this month as a pro-Putin senator for invaded Zaporizhzhia, confirmed the Ukrainian thrust.
‘They are coming, a lot of them,’ he warned.
Meanwhile, an analyst at the Washington-based Institute of War urged the West to back Ukraine’s innovative military strategy rather than whinge from the sidelines about a lack of progress.
‘Now is not the time for Western doubt,’ Nataliya Bugayova said.
‘The West must reinforce its military and diplomatic commitments and lean in to help sustain Ukraine’s battlefield momentum.
‘Ukraine is still facing an existential challenge from Russia, which requires Western aid to militarily defeat.
‘Leaning in means embracing Ukraine’s campaign design. It means ensuring that the Western training of Ukrainian troops is done in conditions in which Ukraine fights at its best.’
Bugayova, non-resident Russian Fellow at the institute, said Ukraine can win the war ‘but it will take more than one counteroffensive operation’.
Sluggish deliveries of weapons gave a respite to Putin, she said.
‘Russia’s Achilles heel remains its inability to rapidly pivot when faced with relentless pressure or consecutive setbacks,’ she went on.
‘Faced with constant pressure over time with no relief, the Russians will likely start to crack.’
Ms Bugayova stressed Ukraine is advancing in Zaporizhzhia region and near Bakhmut.
‘The Russian forces are unable to stop the advance, which is now moving in two directions,’ she said.
The presence of Russian occupiers in Crimea is also becoming less sustainable, she added.
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