Russia has almost run out of armour. Putin’s men are attacking in Ladas

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2025. © Richard Kemp

As international car makers like Mercedes, Nissan and Volkswagen pulled out of Russia, President Putin told top businessmen and officials to drive a Lada instead. It looks like he has now given the same orders to his armed forces fighting in Ukraine. According to American journalist David Axe: ‘the Russian military is normalising assaults in civilian cars’. There are many videos on the internet showing Ladas attacking Ukrainian positions, some with military markings and anti-drone grills fitted.

I remember in the Balkan wars how the opposing military factions pressed civilian vehicles into combat and of course Toyota pickups have long been the preferred battle wagons for jihadists across the Middle East and Africa. But why Russia, with the second most powerful armed forces in the world? Oryx, the Dutch open-source analysis website, estimates Putin’s forces have lost more than 15,000 armoured vehicles and heavy combat equipment since the invasion began.

Axe says that, while Russian industry was unable to come anywhere near replacing an annual loss rate of 6,000 combat vehicles, until recent months it was able to make up the shortfall by fielding aged equipment from Cold War long-term storage parks. The state of those vehicles can only be imagined. I recall seeing rusting tanks and infantry fighting vehicles at Russian bases in East Germany at the height of the Cold War – and they were supposed to be ready to roll across the inner German border at a few hours’ notice. In any case, stocks of what remain of them now appear to be running low, hence the apparently common use of Lada assaults.

Imagine how it must feel for a young Russian soldier driving into the teeth of Ukrainian artillery, anti-tank missiles, drone swarms and land-mines jammed inside a family car. Not to mention rifles and machine guns that would have no problem tearing through the Lada’s paper-thin steel shell. I took part in the invasion of Iraq in 1991 in a Challenger tank. Despite being encased in state-of-the-art Chobham armour, we felt far from invulnerable, although we had air supremacy and our Challengers seriously outgunned the Iraqis’ obsolete Russian tanks. (more…)