Half of Russian tanks lost, Moscow struggling to replace them: Report

Russia has lost around half of its best tanks since it invaded Ukraine and is now struggling to replace them, a leading research centre said as per a report in Sky News. Russia has lost between 2,000 and 2,300 tanks - while Ukraine has had 700 destroyed, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

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Owing to this, Moscow has been forced to rely on older Soviet-era models, the report said. "They're producing and reactivating nowhere near enough to compensate for those loss rates," Henry Boyd, research fellow at the IISS, said.

“Their current armoured fleet at the front is about half the size it was at the start of the war,” he added.

Meanwhile, Moscow's air force is still largely intact, and the country may deploy it more actively in the next phase of the war, the IISS report said.

This comes as Ukraine prepares to receive a shipment of tanks from its Western allies, including US Abrams, German Leopards and British Challengers which Kyiv believes will help in turning the tide against Russia. Ukraine has also urged allies to send fighter jets.

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On Thursday, Russia attacked Ukraine with a barrage of cruise and other missiles hitting targets from east to west. Ukrainian authorities said one of the strikes killed a 79-year-old woman and injured at least seven other people.

Russian forces used a variety of missile types, firing 36 in all in a two-hour overnight burst, Ukraine’s military chief Valery Zaluzhnyy said adding Ukrainian air defense batteries shot down 16 of them.

Ukrainian authorities said targets in the north, west, south, east and center of the country were struck.