Under the fresh spring air, a tank-laden cargo train moves quickly. Wow, a woman says as she points her camera phone at the group. This is the second train; the previous one was similar.
Old Soviet tanks are being moved somewhere in Russia in the video, which appears to have been shot toward the end of March. Older military equipment has been brought out of storage by Moscow to help it fight the war in Ukraine, but these are different.
The tanks are T-55s, a model that was first ordered by the Red Army of the Soviet Union in 1948, shortly after World War II had ended.They're so old, you can track down them in historical centers.
As he shows one to CNN, historian John Delaney, a senior curator at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in Duxford, Cambridge, said, "This is the first main battle tank used by the Soviet Union in the era of the Cold War."
Delaney stated, "You'd had three very distinct types of tanks up until that point, light, medium, and heavy, which had different roles on the battlefield." From the mid-50s onwards, there was this idea that attempted to concoct a tank that could do a touch of everything and that became known as the principal fight tank."
That was the T-55 and its numerous variants, which went on to become the most widely produced tank in the world with more than 100,000 units produced for the Red Army. It was a military staple from Egypt to China to Sudan, where they are still in use. It was inexpensive, dependable, simple to use, and simple to maintain.
In Eastern Europe, they were utilized to suppress uprisings in the previous Warsaw Settlement nations, moving through the roads of Hungary in 1956, and afterward Prague, capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, in 1968.
However, in subsequent decades, they were unable to stand up to Western-built tanks when they were used in some Arab-Israeli conflicts and the Gulf War.
According to Delaney, "the American and British tanks were knocking out Iraqi T-55s from 23 kilometers" during the first Gulf War in 1991.
The East German army owned the version that is housed inside the IWM's Land Warfare hall. It was constructed in the 1960s. After German reunification, the museum bought it because Berlin preferred NATO-standard versions, like the Leopard 1 and then the Leopard 2, which it recently sent to Ukraine, over old Soviet equipment.
According to Delaney, there were still upwards of 28,000 of them when Russia began decommissioning its own T-55s in the 1980s, but they were kept rather than destroyed.
From storage into the battlefield
Delaney asserts, "They'll have been sitting there for a decade or more." They'll require a lot of work to get them back into great running request."
On April 21, 2023, the Arsenyev tank depot can be seen in a second Maxar satellite image.
On April 21, 2023, the Arsenyev tank depot can be seen in a second Maxar satellite image.
The Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of volunteers who use open source intelligence to investigate conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, was the first to report that T-54/55s were being brought out of storage at Arsenyev after footage of a trainload of tanks appeared on social media at the end of March. Maxar Technologies
Western authorities then, at that point, told CNN in April they had seen the old tank spring up near the bleeding edge.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow did not respond to CNN's request for comment, and Russia has not confirmed that it will deploy the T-55 to the front line. However, pro-Kremlin bloggers with a lot of connections have recently shared images of these tanks, which are said to be in Ukrainian territory that is under Russian occupation.
The Netherlands-based open-source knowledge site Oryx says it has visual proof Russia has lost in excess of 1,900 tanks starting from the start of the attack, almost 66% of an underlying armada of around 3,000. The speed with which Russian armor is being destroyed is a significant problem beyond quantity.
"Generally speaking Russia has lost a great deal of gear, it's difficult to fabricate new hardware," said Robert Lee, a previous US Marine and senior individual at the US-based International strategy Exploration Establishment.
Lee continued, "They are producing some new tanks — they are still producing T-90s — but at the scale (required), they need more equipment than they can produce, so they are relying on older tanks to compensate."
Trevor Taylor, overseer of the Safeguard, Businesses and Society Program at the Regal Joined Administrations Foundation, says Western authorizations are additionally dialing back Russia's weapons creation.
Taylor stated, "We have multiple pieces of evidence that Russian industry is really suffering from the restrictions." Russian industry had access to Western technology in the 1990s. They are reportedly removing chips from washing machines, as we are hearing. And when you do that, it's clear that you're having a lot of trouble."
According to satellite imagery, Russia has been removing dozens of tanks from storage at a base in Arsenyev, which is in the far east of Russia. According to photos that are accessible to the public, the T-55 is one of the tanks that are stored at the base.
Delaney asserts, "They'll have been sitting there for a decade or more." They'll require a lot of work to get them back into great running request."
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