russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin, signed an order on the construction by the ministry of defense of two plants for the repair of armored vehicles. The first enterprise, plant No. 71, should appear in the city of Ramenskoye, Moscow region, the second, plant No. 72, in the city of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Rostov region.
The location of facilities says that russians need these plants precisely in order to repair the armored vehicles of the occupation forces fighting against the Ukrainian Armed Forces. However, the terms of the project implementation mentioned in the order are surprising, to put it mildly: 2 months are allocated only to the search for directors of new plants, 3 months are given to registrate the statutes of new enterprises, and as many as 4 months for the registration of new establishments in the structure of the ministry of defense of the russian federation.
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How much time is allocated for the actual construction of armor repair plants, the russian government decided not to detail at all. In some way, it is a hint: instead of building new plants that will serve the russian army in the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is planning a project to "invade" the state treasury. Which is oddly similar to the infamous "Potemkin villages", as the comparison comes to mind at once.
The similarity of this project to the "Potemkin villages" is clear as soon as we recall that the russian federation does not have the technological and personnel resources to build new armored tank repair plants.
Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political columnist of the "Information Resistance" group, writes that modern russia did not actually produce new tanks after the collapse of the USSR, and only showcased modernized and painted vehicles as "new" ones. The government of the russian federation only degraded the enterprises of the russian defense industry. This led, in particular, to a decline in the number of qualified personnel in the industry.
Basically, the Kremlin is fruitlessly trying to "catch up with the time" needed to restore the armored fleet of the russian army, which consisted of the mythical "10,000 tanks" at storage bases. The mentioned Kovalenko cites documented standards according to which it takes about 2 weeks for the T-62 to return to service after it got taken from storage, one to two months for tanks of the T-72 and T-90 types, and up to three months for the T-80.
And as the war against Ukraine progresses, the russians have less and less time as a resource to refit their tanks.
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