1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 25, 2023
Angela Howard, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, and Frederick W. Kagan
March 25, 10 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily
alongside the static maps present in this report.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These
maps complement the static control-of-terrain maps that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic
frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the predictable next information operation to discourage
Ukrainian resistance and disrupt Western support for Ukraine as Russian offensives culminate and
Ukraine prepares to launch counter-offensives in an interview with a state-owned Russian news channel
on March 25.[1]
Putin claimed that the West cannot sustain weapons provisions to Ukraine and exaggerated Russia’s
potential to mobilize its own defense industrial base (DIB) to create the false impression that further
Ukrainian resistance and Western support to Ukraine is futile. Putin claimed that Ukrainian forces expend up to
5,000 shells a day, while the United States produces an average of 14,000–15,000 shells a month. Putin alleged that planned
Western defense production increases will not match Russian planned increases. Putin announced that Russia will build
over 1,600 new tanks by the end of 2023 and that Russia will have more than three times the number of tanks as Ukraine at
that time.[2] Putin likely seized the opportunity to advance this narrative based on The Financial Times’s March 19 report
that European arms manufacturers are “hobbled” by an explosives shortage.[3] Putin argued that continued Western
weapons provisions to Ukraine are merely an attempt to prolong the war.[4]
Putin compared the state of the Russian wartime DIB with current Western military industrial outputs, stating that the West
would need to make significant sacrifices to civilian projects to increase military production to support war in Ukraine. Putin
added that unlike the West, Russia does not need excessive militarization of the economy to expand its DIB capabilities.
These claims are not supportable. The US GDP alone is 10 times the size of Russia’s. Germany, the UK, and France together
have economies nearly five times the size of Russia’s.[5] The US and its allies certainly must make choices when considering
spending the large sums required to support Ukraine, but the choices they face are nothing like as hard as those confronting
Russia. The balance of overall available resources and industrial capacity is decisively weighted toward the West. Russian
military industrial potential is, in fact, hopelessly outmatched by Western military industrial potential. Putin’s messaging is
intended to persuade the West to commit less of that potential to supporting Ukraine by convincing the West, falsely, that
it cannot match Russia. Russia must move to a full war footing to sustain its current military operations—something Putin
has been very reluctant to do. The West does not need to shift to a wartime footing to continue to support Ukraine if it
chooses to do so.
Putin’s stated goals for Russian tank production in 2023 and comparisons with Ukrainian tank stocks also disregard Russia’s
limited industrial capacity to produce more advanced tanks rapidly and ignore Russian tank losses on the battlefield.
Russia’s sole tank production factory, UralVagonZavod, reportedly produces 20 tanks a month.[6] It would take over six
years to meet Putin’s goal at that rate. UralVagonZavod is unlikely to expand production of modern tanks such as the T-90
rapidly enough to meet these targets in nine months due to international sanctions and shortages of skilled labor.[7] The
Kremlin will thus likely continue to pull archaic tanks from storage and may attempt to refurbish some older tanks to meet
the stated quota. A Kremlin pundit stated on a live broadcast on March 25 that Russia would pull old T-34 tanks from storage
and monuments if needed for the war effort while attempting to justify Russia’s recent deployments of the T-54 and T-55
tanks to the frontlines.[8] These tanks are not comparable to modern Abrams, Challenger, or Leopard tanks, or even to T-
72s, in either armament or armor protection.
Even Putin’s announced (and unrealistic) production targets are actually close to the minimum level required to replace
Russian battlefield losses. Russia has reportedly been losing 150 tanks per month and so would need to produce 1,350 tanks
in the next nine months merely to remain at current levels.[9]
Putin’s observations also ignore the fact that the West has been providing Ukraine with smaller numbers of technologically
advanced systems in part to offset the requirement to send masses of ammunition and equipment. Western militaries have
historically held lower stocks of conventional artillery rounds, for example, because they rely on precision long-range fires
such as the HIMARS systems the US has provided Ukraine. The Ukrainian military and its Western backers can confidently
expect that loss rates in tank duels between M1s, Leopards, and Challengers, on the one hand, and T-55s, T-62s, or even T-
