Russia has suffered over 2000 destroyed tanks and there is visual confirmation

The number of Russian tanks confirmed to have been destroyed during the war in Ukraine has reached an astonishing number and things are only likely to get worse as Moscow runs low on crews to man their replacements. Here's what you need to know about the Kremlin's staggering losses.

On May 30th, the Dutch open-source intelligence group Oryx noted that Russia had suffered over 2000 tanks destroyed since invading Ukraine. Oryx has been tracking losses on both sides of the conflict and only reports what can be visually confirmed via photo or video evidence according to the group's website.

Importantly, Oryx only reports on destroyed vehicles and equipment that can be visually confirmed via photo or video evidence according to Jakub Janovsky, a military analyst from the group that spoke with Business Insider about Russian losses in Ukraine.

"This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available," Oryx's website reads. "Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here," the website's disclaimer added.

Jakub Janovsky is one of the military analysts behind the project and spoke with Business Insider about what they've gleaned regarding Russian losses. "The ratio of equipment losses is still very favorable to Ukraine, but less so than it was in autumn last year," Janovsky explained

On April 10th, Oryx confirmed that Russia had lost over 10,000 pieces of military equipment and among them were roughly 2000 destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured Russian tanks—though this number has changed a lot since April. 

The number of Russian tank losses now stands at 2011 destroyed, 110 damaged, 111 abandoned, and 544 captured as of June 2nd—a situation that has had dire consequences for Russia’s battlefield effectiveness. 

However, it’s not just the loss of so many tanks posing a problem for Russian war planners. A far more important loss than the vehicles themselves is the loss of their highly skilled and trained crews, and the problem seems like it's only going to get worse.

Having lost so many of its newer modern tanks, Russia has had to turn to older models to help replace the losses suffered during the first years of the war, something David Axe wrote about in an April 7th article on the biggest problem facing Russian commanders. 

Russia has been “struggling to source the high-tech components it needs to build new tanks,” according to Axe, a situation that has led Russian military leadership to pull “hundreds of 60-year-old T-62s and 70-year-old T-55s” out of long-term storage. 

These older T-62s and T-55s are still dangerous weapons when used correctly and do provide some benefits on the battlefield. But they’re also obsolete and will pose significant problems for Russian tank crews. 

In terms of operability and maintenance, Russia’s older tanks are actually a boon for its armed forces. The tanks can be upgraded with better guns and armor, and fewer complicated components means they’re easier to operate according to Axe. 

Training new crews to operate the less sophisticated tanks is easier as well, though they lack the autoloaders common on newer Russian tanks so a fourth crewmember is needed to help reload the gun. 

“The upside is that a four-person crew could learn to operate its old tank fast—as in, after just a few weeks of training. The downside, of course, is that the crew still is riding in an obsolete tank,” Axe commented, which could pose a major problem. 

Axe referred to Russia's stopgap of older tanks as "crude tech that might not last long in combat—and which might end up getting new tankers killed faster."

Without knowledgeable and experienced tank crews on Russia's frontlines, it's likely that the older tanks brought into the fight will be quickly destroyed and lead to a vicious cycle of loss for the Russian Armed Forces, though it's tough to find evidence for this happening now.