Numerous Cold-War era combat vehicles have been photographed during preparations to deploy to Ukraine at the 103rd Armored Repair Plant in the Russian Far East.
Despite massive numbers of Russian dead and the loss of thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery systems and hundreds of aircraft, Russia is preparing for a new offensive.
The local defense industry is rapidly modernizing 50-year-old T-62 tanks and BRDM-2 armored reconnaissance vehicles to make up for losses.
Russians pulling a number of the T-62s and BRDM-2 vehicles out of long-term storage. Some of them are upgraded to BRDM-2MS configuration with the installation of a new engine, a thermal imaging sight and additional armor. The T-62 tanks are being overhauled and getting new communication systems and optics.
Last week, senior Ukrainian officials say Russia is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Moscow in recent months.
Officials said the push could be launched from the eastern Donbas area, the south or neighboring Belarus, and could include another ground assault on Kyiv, which Moscow failed to capture early in the invasion.
“The Russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops. I have no doubt they will have another go at Kyiv,” the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Army Valery Zaluzhny was quoted as saying.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov also said in remarks published in The Guardian that evidence was mounting that Russia planned a broad new offensive.
He speculated this could occur in February when half of the 300,000 troops conscripted by Russia in October to support the war would complete training.