Bottom line

Despite losing hundreds of armoured vehicles and artillery pieces per month on average, Russia has been able to keep its active inventory numbers stable. For 2023, we estimate that Russia was able to reactivate at least 1,180 to 1,280 MBTs and around 2,470 IFVs and APCs from storage. On top of that, Moscow was able to manufacture new tanks and other armoured vehicles, though precise numbers are difficult to glean even from satellite images.

Commercial overhead imagery does shed light, though, on Russian equipment in storage that is potentially available for activation or refurbishment to compensate for further battlefield losses. Russia has 10 Central Tank Reserve Bases, at least 37 mixed equipment- and armaments-storage bases, and at least 12 artillery-storage bases. An in-depth assessment by the IISS last year showed equipment replenishments were roughly keeping pace with battlefield attrition.

It is our assessment, therefore, that Russia will be able to sustain its assault on Ukraine at current attrition rates for another 2–3 years, and maybe even longer.

Ensuring a nation’s survival sometimes leaves tragically little

room for private morality. Discovering the inapplicability of

Judeo-Christian morality in certain circumstances involving

affairs of state can be searing. The rare individuals who have

recognized the necessity of violating such morality, acted

accordingly, and taken responsibility for their actions are among

the most necessary leaders for their countries, even as they

have caused great unease among generations of well-meaning

intellectuals who, free of the burden of real-world bureaucratic

responsibility, makes choices in the abstract and treat morality

as an inflexible absolute.

RUSSIAN WAR IN UKRAINE

NATO personnel already in Ukraine for arms control, intelligence operations and military training

The French proposal not to rule out sending soldiers to fight against Russia opened a debate that confirms there are soldiers from the Atlantic Alliance on the ground, but not in combat roles

Emmanuel Macron broke the taboo in February. NATO already assists Ukraine in virtually every possible aspect, from supplying weaponry and intelligence on Russian targets and the positions of enemy bombers to training thousands of Ukrainian troops in Europe. But until the French president suggested it, no one had dared to raise the question of Atlantic Alliance soldiers going into action to stop the Kremlin’s invasion. Macron not only opened a debate; his words also served to confirm that there are already military personnel from NATO countries on Ukrainian soil, albeit without taking an active role in combat operations.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a conference in Warsaw on March 8 that there were already representatives of the Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine. “NATO soldiers are already present in Ukraine. And I would like to thank the ambassadors of those countries who have taken that risk. These countries know who they are, but I can’t disclose them. Contrary to other politicians, I will not list those countries,” Sikorski said. The last sentence was a veiled criticism of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who in late February revealed that British and French military personnel are in Ukraine. Scholz argued that his government would not provide Kyiv with its Taurus long-range missiles because it would require — as has happened with the British-French Storm Shadow / Scalp rockets — sending military technicians for the programming of these weapons.

The presence of soldiers from NATO countries in Ukraine is nothing new. Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder confirmed in October 2022 that the United States had military representatives stationed to perform the task of monitoring the supply of armaments. In confidential Pentagon documents leaked in April 2023, the U.S. Defense Department indicated that five Atlantic Alliance countries — the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and the Netherlands — had around 100 special forces personnel at their embassies in Ukraine.

The Czech president, Petr Pavel, a retired general and former chairman of the NATO military committee, recalled on March 10 in a television interview that Atlantic Alliance soldiers have been present in Ukraine for over a decade, not in combat units but as instructors for the Ukrainian army. Pavel was referring to the Yavoriv base, near the border with Poland, where an agreement between NATO and Kyiv has allowed 1,000 soldiers from 15 countries to pass through, according to Pavel. The Czech president stressed that military training programs on Ukrainian soil were active when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014and during the Donbas war, initiated by pro-Russian separatists and supported by Moscow.