After losing 15,000 armored vehicles, the Russians turn to unarmored civilian models.
David Axe
Forbes Staff
Jan 27, 2025
As reserves of armored vehicles run out amid catastrophic losses in Ukraine and western Russia, the Russian military is normalizing assaults in civilian cars. And not just any civilian cars, but Lada Zhigulis: compact models that are just 16 feet from fender to fender and weigh slightly more than one ton.
When the first Russian assault groups climbed into their Zhigulis and rolled out for nearly suicidal attacks across the drone-patrolled no-man’s-land in eastern Ukraine last fall, it was possible to dismiss the Zhiguli assaults as one-offs by the most desperate and vehicle-deprived Russian regiments.
It’s no longer realistic to paint such a rosy picture for the Russian military’s mechanization efforts. With losses of armored vehicles and other heavy equipment now exceeding 15,000, Zhiguli assaults are becoming more common.
“I guess this Lada storming is the norm now?” open-source analyst Moklasen mused as they scrutinized yet another video feed from a Ukrainian drone unit blowing up Russian Zhigulis attacking Ukrainian positions.
Andrew Perpetua, another open-source analyst, was equally bemused. “Assault time,” he wrote. “Everyone into the Lada.”
The Ladas—not just Zhiguli models but also slightly more powerful Nivas—began to appear in large numbers among Russian assault units as stocks of armored vehicles began running very low a few months ago.
Russia builds maybe 200 new BMP-3 fighting vehicles and 90 new T-90M tanks annually as well as a few hundred other new armored vehicles including BTR-82 wheeled fighting vehicles.
But Russia has been losing armored vehicles at an annualized rate of 6,000 a year. For two years, the Kremlin comfortably made up the four-figure gap between losses and production by pulling old Cold War vehicles out of long-term storage.
The Cold War storage yards once held vast stocks of old tanks and other armored vehicles. But now even these stocks are running low.
Open-source analyst Jompy explained it best, taking BTR wheeled fighting vehicles as an example. “It looks like Russia still has overall 2,358 stored BTR-60/70/80s out of the 3,673 it had in storage before the war,” Jompy wrote in December.
“In reality, most of the vehicles are older BTR-60s and -70s, and in poor condition,” Jompy added. “How poor?” They squinted at satellite imagery of the 1063rd Logistics Center in Saigrajewo, near the Russian border with Mongolia—and additional imagery of vehicle parks in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad as well as Smolino, just west of Moscow.
It turned out, none of the vehicles in Saigrajewo had moved from their parking spots since 2020. The ones in Kaliningrad had been immobile since 2018. Those in Saigrajewo hadn’t moved an inch since 2010.
“A vehicle that doesn’t move for so long is a dead vehicle,” Jompy explained. “And if you don’t believe me, you surely have seen what happens to abandoned civilian cars over just a few years in the open air.”
For many months, observers have debated if and when the Russian armed forces would reach a critical tipping point—the exhaustion of vehicle-generation efforts—and begin a long, painful process of de-mechanization.
The normalization of Lada assaults is a clear sign they’ve passed that tipping point. Every day Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds on, the Russians will have fewer armored vehicles—and will rely more on compact cars to carry troops into battle.