1/ On sheds, scrapyards and parking lots: short thread on some caveats about Russian military storage bases.
2/ I mentioned a while ago that I was planning a thread on these topics, and finally it's here. This is mostly about explaining some interesting subjects about Russian stored equipment and how it can help unsolve part of the mistery of how much more potential equipment remains there.
3/ First I want to talk about scrapyards. On the thumbnail is the most famous one, the local scrapyards of the 1295th base at Arseniev, of which I have talked several times and that's a great example of this particular subject.
4/ Practically all storage bases have a local scrapyard where they destroyed mothballed equipment that was not classified as fit anymore for various reasons: it could be too obsolete, it could exceed CFE numbers, it simply was beyond their capacity to mantain such number of equipment (even with the typically atrocious post Soviet storage standards)...
5/ Since the war started, scrapyards, which previously held junk for years without it being moved, suddenly started emptying in many places. I want to show some exampled of this: first, I'm linking again my previous post of the 1295th:
6/ In the most recent footage they haven't removed more equipment from the scrapyed; instead, they have moved junk from the active part of the base to said scrapyard.
7/ The 2546th/103rd: prewar and during the war.
8/ The 2544th: prewar vs during the war.
9/ At some other bases the number of scrapped hulls has increased tho. The 94th arsenal it's one such case, due to the cannibalization of artillery: prewar vs during the war.
10/ In most recent footage which I can't share the number of broken hulls has dramatically increased at many bases tho, as I said yesterday.
11/ This isn't conclusive at all, but I find very interesting that early during the many several of the biggest storage bases saw an unprecedented drop in the number of stored scrap, and at many other broken hulls were rearranged in rows. I can't assure it, but I guess part of it was used to provide spare parts for damage equipment in Ukraine, even if it was just hull parts.
12/ Now that we have talked about scrapyards, it's time to talk about the next subject: sheds.
13/ Many have tried to speculate how much equipment could be stored inside these, specially before the invasion broke out. Both @HighMarsed and the @InstitutAR did good analysis on this.
15/ It's indeed almost certain that the most modern and best preserved stored equipment would've been stored inside garages. However, I doubt that most sheds actually were used to stored equipment. Most likely, a biggest share of them were used for critical facilities such as repair workshops, spare parts storage and such.
16/ @Ath3neN0ctu4 recently found many interesting pics of storage bases, including multiple ones inside hangars that point out exactly to this:
17/
18/ But that's not the only point about hangars that supports this theory. Another intersting thing is that they have kept demolishing them at an steady rate for years, even after 2022.
19/ Some satellite footage of this attached as examples: first, a comparison of the 230th:
20/ The 111th:
21/ The 349th:
22/ And many other bases have rundown sheds that clearly would be better maintained if they were use for something important. Just some pics here because I really have no need of going crazy reviewing base by base and looking at every shed:
23/ To sum this up, hangars probably didn't hold as much equipment prewar as many estimated, and they probably aren't even that useful when the Russian military is actively demolishing many of them, and has been doing this for well over a decade due to a lack of funds and use.
24/ Finally, the last, but not least important topic I want to talk about today: how the way stored equipment is lined up can tell us a lot about their state and usefulness.
25/ You see, I'm running out of time, so I'll finish this last part of the thread later today. Hope you have enjoyed it so far.
26/ I forgot to mention it when explaining storage bases scrapyards, but neither me nor @HighMarsed include the junk in those in our count, not even while classifiying it as broken equipment. I do however count broken equipment found in active parts of storage bases.
27/ Back to work. As I was saying, the way equipment is lined up in rows can tell us a lot about their readiness. "Good" equipment is usually pretty well lined up, while "bad" equipment is left as it was parked a long time ago. Compare the armored vehicles at the 3018th/6018th before the war:
27/ Indeed, the first picture shows the local junkyard, while the second one is the main section of the part that held active armor.
28/ Some more pics: the 22nd.
29/ The 769th/227th:
30/ Finally, as to not make this thread an eternal lecture, the 744th:
31/ In cases were all equipment was pretty ordered, it was pretty quickly removed. A great example of this is the former Ukrainian military depot at the outskirts of Sevastopol:
32/ I could keep talking in even more detail of these topics, but I think by now you all have get the gist of it. So that's it for today, hope you liked it! I'll try to get some actual count numbers posted here preeeeetty soonoooon, at long last.
33/ In case I wasn't clear enough, well lined armor was probably parked there on their own, while chaotic rows most likely had armor towed there, not powered on their own engines.
1/ A while ago I did a small thread on BMP storage bases and which ones were likely to never be bothered with. I feel like it's worth doing the same with tanks.
2/ This is what remains in storage as of the latest imagery I could find. As usual, numbers still look big, but there are caveats.
3/ T-64s we already know their issues with them, so we can outight discard them from the count unless some dramatic development with regards to them happens (unlikely). That's already 1/5 fewer tanks in storage.
So, I got to look to a pretty recent image thanks to a kind soul. As of May 22nd there are 203 T-80s left in Omsk. More than expected, but that's what happen when you rely on Copernicus and similar low res imagery.
Even more interesting, roughly half the remaning T-80s are T-80U/UDs based on their came scheme, there's even more piles of turrets (@T_90AK wink wink) and roughly 30 completely cannibalized and turretles T-80 hulls, likely to be converted to BREM-80s.
Barely any movement in Russian storage bases in 2026 so far. Seems UVZ has enough T-72As in queue for now to pull more from storage, and everything else is pretty much unchanged.
The most remarkable things is the 2456th focusing now on BTR-70s and the 769th slowly pulling the remaining BMPs.
I guess we're officially at the point refurbishing stored armor no longer makes sense. They're all too old and broken down, Russia already has enough armor reserves for what little action they see and new production is already more than enough to compensate losses.
There clearly has been a huge movement of stored towed artillery pieces since late summer/early autumn 2025, but unfortunately we lack footage.
Just look at all those barrels cannibalized at artillery arsenals like Planovyi and compare them with the prewar situation or even just over a year before late 2025:
And also an increasing number of barreless pieces, like these 2A36s:
One of the biggest MT-LB bases prewar, the 7004th is now all but empty. Even most trucks are gone, but what's interesting, I can only spot 3 bad looking MT-LBs left here:
Kudos to @aXielMeMer9432 for finding the update on Google Earth!
@aXielMeMer9432 Otoh, almost everything updated in Ussuriysk is all but empty of anything but trucks, so we can expect the same for the 7020th Arsenal that didn't get updated this time. Here one example of a part of the 7033rd previously storing SPGs and MLRSs:
Just got another update from the 111th. Some interesting things: by now most tanks in this base are the ones in this spot (pics are from September on Google Earth):
Like in most bases, the scrapyard has been mostly cleaned out:
And most of the refurbed BMPs have been dispatched and are no longer in the 111th: