Russia Sending 'Ancient' Tanks to Ukraine War as Military Struggles

A video purportedly showing old Russian tanks being transferred by train to battle across southwest Russia has drawn the attention of locals.

The footage, posted on Twitter by Estonian war blogger Dmitri via his @wartranslated account, shows multiple T-55 tanks—Soviet-era models first introduced in the aftermath of World War II—traveling through the city of Voronezh.

Last month, Kyiv officials said that Russia's total tank loss since the war began on February 24, 2022, has exceeded 4,000. However, the numbers of soldier casualties and equipment losses have been viewed by some as skewed based on how Russian and Ukrainian officials have calculated statistics differently.

"They're ancient like mammoth's crap," one Russian resident in Voronezh says to another, both observing the transfer. "T-55, they ran out of new tanks, bringing up old stuff now."

The other individual says the tanks look "fresh." The other retorts that they are just "painted into some weird color," acknowledging that they're all the same model.

Newsweek could not independently verify the model of tanks, or that they were being transferred through Voronezh.

As the war just exceeded the 16-month mark, Ukrainian officials feel confident that their counteroffensive is moving in a positive direction. On Monday, the nation's military posted a video showing U.S.-supplied HIMARS, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, destroying numerous Russian targets including rocket launchers and howitzers.

"Last week was difficult on the frontline," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. "But we are making progress. We are moving forward, step by step! I thank everyone who is defending Ukraine, everyone who is leading this war to Ukraine's victory! Glory to our heroes!"

Zelensky's voice of optimism came hours after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, targeted by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin as part of his mercenary group's failed mutiny attempt, said his forces repelled the enemy in Bakhmut—a hotbed of fighting throughout most of the war's duration.

The Prigozhin-led display, however, garnered worldwide attention and reportedly caused Russian President Vladimir Putin to flee Moscow by plane and seek refuge at a different residence some 250 miles away.

A new report issued by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says internal consternation exists between the Russian Defense Ministry and the country's military bloggers, also known as milbloggers.

The milbloggers most recently refuted claims by the ministry that Russian forces were victorious against the opposition following a battle near the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson, a pivotal city in Eastern Ukraine, according to the ISW.

Putin is also considering censoring such bloggers, per the report.

Bakhmut, characterized on numerous occasions by Prigozhin as a "meat grinder," is being viewed with renewed high stakes in the aftermath of the mutiny attempt and the role played in the Donetsk region by Wagner Group fighters.

"For Russia, holding Bakhmut has now become an even greater political imperative, and this might just be what Ukraine needs to force Russia to concentrate its operational reserves in the defense of this pile of ruins," Frederik Mertens, a strategic analyst with the Hague Center for Security Studies, previously told Newsweek.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.