18.10.24 Analytics

Exhausted or Hardened? Can Russia prepare for a new war in the near future?


Has the Russian military machine become stronger as a result of its combat experience in Ukraine and the rapid expansion of its defence industry over the past two years, or has it, on the contrary, been depleted by the war and will require a long time to recover its potential? How quickly can this recovery happen? The answers to these questions will determine the direction of European military planning in the near future.

While Russia has managed to address the issue of manpower shortages and its army has gained significant combat experience, it will be difficult to translate this into the creation of a regular, capable army after the conflict ends. It is unlikely that current levels of payments to soldiers will be maintained, and the largely older and sometimes deviant contingent of Russians fighting in Ukraine is unlikely to form the backbone of a future professional military. 

Russia has suffered massive losses in weaponry and military equipment, with estimates suggesting it has lost up to half of the arsenal that was on active duty before the war began. The adaptability of Russia's defence industry largely relies on the stockpiles of Soviet-era equipment, which are being refitted and modified on the fly to meet combat needs.

Rearming and boosting the combat capabilities of the army is a completely different challenge. Two scenarios are possible here: a conservative one and an accelerated one. In the conservative scenario, Russia maintains its military capabilities through retrofitting Soviet-era stockpiles while preparing new production capacities that would be operational closer to 2030. In the accelerated scenario, resources are mobilised to launch these capacities as quickly as possible, posing significant budgetary risks.

The exact potential for Russia's military recovery is likely unclear not only to analysts but also to Russian authorities themselves, who do not have a complete picture of the current situation. However, experts warn against underestimating Moscow, which has demonstrated a high capacity for adaptation and resource mobilisation on a larger scale than anticipated. At present, these adaptive capabilities give Russia an advantage in weapons production and manpower mobilisation compared to European NATO countries. This temporary advantage could embolden Russia to launch a provocative attack on one or more NATO countries.

There are two opposing viewpoints: according to the first, the war in Ukraine has depleted Russia's military machine and army. Regardless of how the conflict ends, Russia is severely weakened by its costs and sanctions, making it a much less dangerous adversary in the future than it was even before the full-scale war began. The second viewpoint, on the contrary, argues that the war has given a powerful boost to the capabilities of Russia's military-industrial complex, mobilised economic resources for military development, and transformed what was largely a ‘Potemkin’ army that entered Ukraine in late February 2022 into a force hardened by intense combat and skilled in adaptive warfare.

The first perspective concludes that the West, and Europe in particular, should adjust their defence strategies but still have ample time, as Russia is incapable of embarking on new military ventures in the near future. The second, however, leads to a more alarmist conclusion, suggesting that Russia may be able to attack Europe in the near future, with Europe being entirely unprepared for the new reality – the threat of large-scale conventional war on its territory.

The answer to the question of which viewpoint is closer to reality and what Russia's potential is for increasing its military power after the active fighting ends will shape Europe's strategy for its own military development and its assistance to Ukraine.

The army: has it become more combat-capable?

Russia's most capable and well-trained units were lost in the first weeks following the invasion of Ukraine. According to the joint project of the BBC and Mediazona, confirmed losses during the war include around 3000 paratroopers (including 512 officers), 1,150 marines, and nearly 700 special forces soldiers (the actual losses are likely significantly higher, perhaps double). As military analyst Dara Massicot notes in the study ‘Russia's Military Reconstruction: Paths and Prospects 2030’, although by the third year of the war the Ministry of Defense managed to stabilise the size of the Russian army, this was made possible by effectively banning demobilisation and attracting volunteers enticed by extremely high financial rewards.

This strategy allows Russia to replenish its manpower and continue bloody assaults, but it provides little insight into how the country's military development will evolve after the war. Many of the recruits are older or come from criminal backgrounds, unsuitable for long-term military development, and maintaining current levels of payments and benefits is unlikely to be sustainable. Soldiers who have endured brutal warfare, while experienced, are likely to suffer from PTSD and introduce harsh ‘dedovshchina’ (a culture of hazing) into the ranks.

From the early 1990s until the mid-2010s, the size of the Russian army was gradually reduced, and according to presidential decrees from 2016-2017, it was set at about 1.9 million personnel (of which 1 million were active-duty military). During the war, Putin has increased the army's size three times, and under the latest decree, it has grown back to mid-1990s levels at 2.4 million personnel (with 1.5 million being active-duty military). Thus, the civilian personnel numbers have not increased, while the number of active-duty soldiers has grown by 50%.

The question of how such an army size can be maintained after the war remains open. To staff the armed forces on such a scale, the Kremlin may decide to extend the length of conscription from one year to two. However, such a measure would have extremely negative consequences given Russia’s unfavourable demographic trends and labour shortages in the economy. Moreover, implementing this scenario would require nearly doubling military infrastructure, according to Dara Massicot. This includes repairing abandoned bases, building modern communication facilities, barracks, housing for families, schools, and more. Additionally, Russia's military education system, which in Soviet times could produce 60,000 officers per year – enough to maintain a force of about 4 million soldiers – is currently designed for an army of about 1 million and cannot be quickly adapted. Over the past two decades, many educational institutions, including military medical academies, were consolidated or closed, leading to a reduced number of tactical medical specialists in Russia.

Despite the combat experience gained, the units formed hastily during the war and subject to high turnover are unlikely to form the foundation of a professional post-war Russian army. To reconstitute the army at the declared scale, returning to the size of the early 1990s, Russia would essentially need to rebuild the infrastructure that has been gradually dismantled over the past 25 years. This reduction was based on the idea that the Russian army would be professional and compact, aimed at countering local attacks and conducting ‘special operations’ in conflict zones. Creating and maintaining an army capable of launching wide-front offensives would require a completely different level of spending

In general, it can be concluded that the Russian army currently fighting in Ukraine cannot be converted into the core of a post-war Russian force capable of effectively attacking other countries.

Armaments: losses and methods of compensation

The war in Ukraine has led to unprecedented material losses for the Russian army. According to the Russo-Ukrainian Warspotting project, which maintains a database of material losses on both sides of the conflict based on photographic evidence from open sources, as of mid-October, Russia’s total losses amounted to about 17,000 pieces of equipment, including more than 3,000 tanks (more than were on active duty at the start of the war), over 6,400 armoured vehicles, nearly 1,500 various artillery systems and multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), nearly 500 drones, 100 helicopters, over 80 aircraft, and almost 20 warships. The Oryx project reports even higher numbers: 3,450 tanks, 6,850 armoured vehicles, 144 helicopters, and 119 aircraft. But even based on the more conservative Warspotting data, it can be said that about half of the arsenal that was on active duty at the start of Russia's invasion in February 2022 has been destroyed (though the size of these forces may have been overestimated). Approximately 20% of these losses occurred during the winter and spring of 2022, with the rest happening later, as the front lines shifted less significantly.

The Russian army’s arsenal and material losses in Ukraine, number of units

Analysts generally agree that, given such massive losses, the Kremlin has been able to maintain active combat operations in Ukraine primarily due to strategic reserves of military equipment left over from the Soviet era. According to estimates by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Russia had about 10,000 tanks, 18,500 units of various armoured vehicles, 4,200 self-propelled artillery systems, and 12,400 towed artillery pieces in its strategic reserve at the beginning of the war, as well as 3,200 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). As noted by Dara Massicot, the Russian Ministry of Defense has built about 270 facilities for the operational repair of military equipment during the war, some of which are located just 15-20 kilometres from the front lines. According to IISS estimates, will allow Russia to continue fighting at its current pace for another two to three years. The UK Ministry of Defence offers a more cautious assessment: the current level of losses enables Russia to conduct the war at its current pace for at least until 2026.

Leading Western experts noted during the Atlantic Council's March 2024 seminars that just one year after then-Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu began reforming the armed forces in 2022, Russia was able to form two new combined arms armies, increase personnel numbers to 490,000, and raise the share of military spending to 6% of GDP. A significant increase in military production allowed Moscow to supply about 1,500 tanks and 3,000 armoured vehicles to the front each year, as well as produce nearly 200 Iskander missiles. Russia’s production of artillery shells is estimated at 250,000 per month, which is three times the combined production of the United States and Europe. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius stated as early as April that Russia produces more weapons and military equipment than it needs for the war in Ukraine. However, some experts gathered by the Atlantic Council believe that these successes in military construction have merely transformed the Russian armed forces from ‘terrible to bad’, and the potential for further improvement is limited.

The fog of perspective

Chatham House expert Mathieu Boulègue asserts in his report ‘Assessing Russia's plans for military regeneration’ that the high resilience of the Russian defence industry, demonstrated during the war in Ukraine, does not guarantee the success of the armed forces' recovery program. The Russian defence sector has yet to overcome its dependency on critical imported components and industrial equipment that have become difficult to obtain due to sanctions. The most significant gaps have arisen in the production of engines, turbines, and microelectronics. Defence industry enterprises suffer from low labour productivity and a lack of skilled personnel, and also face issues related to the limited lifecycle of the machinery and equipment used in military production. Due to structural constraints, the Russian defence industry is poorly equipped to overcome the consequences of the war against Ukraine.

Furthermore, any post-war development programs for the defence industry will encounter limitations due to the overall labour shortage in the economy. Most defence plants in Russia are already operating around the clock, using prisoners and foreign students from technical colleges as workers, notes Dara Massicot. In her view, as the Kremlin works on the State Armaments Program for the next ten years, which is to be approved next year, it faces a choice among several scenarios.

The conservative scenario envisions that military production in Russia will be maintained at its current level (around 250-300 tanks per year) and will be utilised if the Kremlin determines that existing stockpiles of Soviet weapons, as well as the capabilities of the Air Force, Navy, and nuclear assets, will be sufficient to meet defence and offensive needs over the next decade, until new production capacities are brought online. This non-accelerated rearmament option carries low financial risks for the budget and can be implemented under the existing labour shortage. To realise this, the active phase of the war in Ukraine would need to conclude by 2025, while Russia still has sufficient stockpiles of Soviet weaponry.

The alternative scenario assumes that Russian authorities will decide to rapidly increase offensive and defensive capabilities, initiating a program to build new factories and retool existing production lines. However, implementing rearmament programs is impossible without temporarily halting production, which is incompatible with the current military needs of the Kremlin. Building new factories will require large-scale purchases of machinery and equipment, the export of which to Russia is restricted due to sanctions. Furthermore, new productions will face challenges in hiring qualified personnel.

The implementation of any of these scenarios will be hindered by the high level of bureaucracy within the defence industry, excessive secrecy, paranoia about espionage, and lack of transparency in management. Since 2022, the market for Russian venture capital for military technology startups has shrunk by 56% year-on-year, while defence procurement volumes have increased by 10%, notes Dara Massicot. Stricter secrecy and clearance requirements create an environment where corruption, inefficiency, and a lack of real quality control thrive, she writes.

The precise potential for the recovery of the Russian military industry appears to be unclear not only to analysts but also to Russian authorities, who likewise lack a clear picture of capabilities and current conditions due to the Russian bureaucracy’s tendency toward exaggeration and obfuscation in an environment of high secrecy and absence of independent oversight mechanisms. Furthermore, the choice of a scenario for the development of the defence industry will depend on economic dynamics, trends in external revenues, and consequently, budgetary capabilities. This year’s budget projections indicate that, unlike last year when the government anticipated ending the war in 2024 and sharply reducing expenditures in 2025, military spending is now expected to remain at a level close to the current one (→ Re: Russia: The Non-Victory Budget).

However, Atlantic Council analysts urge not to underestimate Moscow, which has proven to be a competitor that has mobilised its economy for war to a greater extent than previously thought, given its capabilities in the context of sanctions, and is preparing for a long-term confrontation with the Western coalition. Despite numerous issues within the Russian defence industry, they believe that in the short- to mid-term, Russia is capable of increasing its military strength faster than NATO, while most NATO countries (except for the northeastern flank of the alliance) are not adequately responding to this situation. This creates a dangerous disparity: if the Kremlin perceives a window of opportunity related to weakness or disagreements in the West, it may launch a provocative strike, even if its military potential has not been fully restored.