Ukrainian forces bought hundreds of tanks and other military equipment when Russian soldiers left the occupied territories, but many of them are sitting in hangars because there are no spare parts, according to The Washington Post.

Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has spent more than 82 billion dollars on the war. This amount is a quarter of the annual budget of the Russian Federation, Forbes Ukraine estimates.

Russia unwittingly became the largest supplier of heavy weapons to Ukraine.

A significant amount of equipment lost by the Russian Federation was given to the Ukrainian armed forces as trophies during the chaotic withdrawal, worth about $2 billion, excluding small arms and ammunition.

Parts are hard to find

Battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers and other military equipment of the Russians were repaired by the Ukrainian arms company “Ukroboronprom” in order to send them into battle against their former owners.

The BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle, armed with a 100 mm cannon and a 30 mm automatic cannon, was one of the few of its kind captured by the Ukrainian military from the Russians since the beginning of the invasion.

But about a month ago, after weeks of exploitation by Ukrainian fighters, the engine and fuel system began to fail.

Since then, it has not been put into operation, being stuck at a repair plant in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

Several tanks and such vehicles lie in hangars, Ukrainians also have to puzzle over spare parts for their repair, as in the case of the repair battalion of the 14th separate mechanized brigade, which could not find the spare parts it needed for BMP. -3.

A spare parts database is required

It cannot be repaired with spare parts from similar Ukrainian equipment, and Ruslan, the repair battalion commander, says it would be good to have a common database where all compatible spare parts could be transferred between brigades, as it would save time.

In the Donetsk region, Vadm Ustymenko, who is a member of the 25th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that over the past seven months he had changed tanks “six to seven times” because they often needed repair. Now he is fighting on a T-80 tank. – among the best models in the Ukrainian arsenal.

The 25th Brigade was the first unit to enter the city of Izyum after Russian troops hastily retreated from Kharkiv Oblast in September, leaving behind an extraordinary number of tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Many tanks have been captured, few are serviceable

Despite the fact that they captured many tanks, very few of them were operational, the Ukrainian military said. The good ones could be counted on the fingers, 30% of those that worked needed repair, and more than half needed a lot of work.

Often the hardest part of repairing a Russian car is simply identifying the problem, Ruslan said. Many tanks were captured in the Kupyansk region during the counteroffensive of Ukrainian troops in Kharkiv.

Each brigade has a technical intelligence unit that searches for abandoned equipment and machinery on the battlefield and then tows them to hangars.

Frequent power outages make it difficult to repair vehicles in a timely manner, because the generator cannot cope with returning the equipment to life, and this is Putin’s goal, Ruslan claims.

Follow the latest events of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HotNews.ro