Prime minister of russia Mishustin signed an order for the establishment of a new plant specialized in repairing artillery systems. The state-owned 120 Arsenal will be located in Bryansk, six months were provided to finish all the bureaucratic procedures. Apparently, the new plant will be based on the active 120th arsenal of the russian GRAU – missile and artillery department of the ministry of defense of russia.
The logic behind this location is the easy railway availability and the rather short distance between the place and the Ukrainian frontline. However, for the same reason Bryansk has already been under attack: a series of explosions took place in April 2022, the 120th arsenal was on fire, too.
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On paper, russians should enjoy an abundance of facilities to repair their artillery. But in fact, some of them were discarded in favor of other infrastructure, some found themselves in logistic isolation, and most just specialize in a particular type of artillery system and are too scattered across the vast russian federation.
For example, there was the 775th Artillery Repair Plant praised as one the biggest dedicated facilities in russia. It could work with not only artillery but also air defense guns such as ZSU-23-2 Shilka and Tunguska systems. But the spot located close to the city was too much of a goldmine to keep the plant going there, it was seen as a nice place to build a shopping mall or a business center instead.
That is exactly what happened with the 775th plant. By 2010, the enterprise was artificially brought to bankruptcy and terminated, and in 2016 a construction site arose in its place. As of the beginning of 2022, there was already ongoing construction of a shopping mall and a window-making enterprise.
There is an active 69th Artillery Repair Plant in Kaliningrad. But it doesn't seem like this enclave can deliver any artillery pieces to the war zone. One of the major players is the 9th Artillery Repair Plant in Yekaterinburg specialized primarily in D-30 howitzers but this facility must be seen by the russian army as located too far from the frontline.
The Motovilikhinskiye Zavody plant is situated in Perm, almost in the Urals, its specialties are Msta-B towed howitzers, Nona-K towed mortars and Nona-SVK self-propelled mortars.
The Central Scientific Research Institute Burevestnik enterprise is formally a part of the Uralvagonzavod armor plant. It makes 2B11 and 2B24 mortars. The only russian facility specialized in producing and modernizing self-propelled artillery is the Uraltransmash located as far as in Yekaterinburg.
Thus we have russians trying to urgently establish a universal hub for the repair of all types of artillery systems available in the russian army. Despite the risk of this facility being within the reach of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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