They can be true. They might be low on current stockpile, but what is building up is production capacity. Preparing to attack doesn't mean immediately attacking, what most have concern is that once Russia's war against Ukraine cools down, Russia will spend the next 4-10 years building up towards potentially attacking NATO nations.

Yes, years down the line doesn't sound as alarming to the layman, but it is critical for that eventuality to be recognized and prepared for, nations and industry move slowly, and they need to prepare to fight another long drawn out war.

The idea is that after some kind of cease fire, russia will churn out stuff for 3-4-5 years (so mebbe 1.000 tanks?) and then not go full frontal against NATO but say take a bite out of Lithuania, just to see what the response will be.

Like they have been doing since forever (Chechnya, Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine and so on).

They absolutely can.

Russia has thousands of men willing to fight in horrendous conditions.

A few thousand soldiers that are very well equipped might lose to 10x as many badly equipped enemies.

I think they would lose, but they might not think so.

We have to keep in mind that Europe needs to justify austerity for the citizens and rearmament for their militaries. I have no evidence of this, but I think it's an entierly sensible read that the warning from Germany is an overstatement with that intent in mind.

Both things can be true because Germany is talking about risks in the upcoming 5 to 10 years, while this issue is relevant today.

There are ways Russia can attack that doesn’t include massive tank charges

If you know anything about current Russian government, you'd know that one necessarily follows the other. The more desperate Russia gets, the less reserves they have, the more bold and aggressive they're getting. There is a combination of factors leading into it, both psychological and material.

Taking over a Baltic state is feasible. NATO might react by sending helmets and prayers.

And yet, moving the front is almost impossible without them. All vehicles struggle with drones but at least tanks won't go down from machine gun fire, and without vehicles were pretty much back to WW1 tactics, fighting over inches.

Kinda what happened to battleships in the era of aircraft carriers and submarines?

Agreed. I want the killing to stop and Russia to stop it's conquest.

Don’t worry, the US will probably bail Russia out to keep that from happening

Unless the Ukrainians have resorted to conscripting great apes, it's "guerilla" rather than "gorilla".

Russia has been coasting on old Soviet stock for a while. Most of their modern t-90s and t-14s have been exploded. They've been sending mothballs tanks and apcs to the front for years now. Last year a good deal of frontline troops were using unarmored Chinese golf carts to move around. They never had the manufacturing capability to keep modernized armor at the front, and it is costing russian lives

Russia has spent up enough of of their mainline modern vehicles like T-90Ms to a point where the refurbishments have long ago stopped keeping up. Similarly IFVs are lost, especially many of their airborne models which were misused early in the war.

The war has become much more static, with Russian vehicle losses slowing them down. The final assault on Avdiivka for example was completely brutal, lasting a month and consisting of a lot of unsupported infantry charges over an open field. The Russians did eventually win, taking the fortified position they were assaulting, but the tactics used and amount of losses to do them are not something that would have happened if they'd had the vehicles to spare.

The shear scale of the war has had Russia brute force it from being a maneuver fight to an attrition fight, and Russia appears to be banking on having the higher population to win. How that will resolve is up in the air, Ukraine wants to turn it back into a maneuver war I think and I don't know if they can. The propaganda from the war by both sides can make it difficult to get a clear up to date picture.

Also, pretty sure modern warfare has learned heavily that tanks are completely obsolete against drones. Or even less modern warfare tells us how useless they are in cities against [guerrilla] fighters.

Tanks are one tool in the box, and like any other tool they are adapting to drones. Drones are not a silver bullet, and they especially are not as useful in supporting or spearheading fast moving offensives, which is still an important role tanks will fill. Active protection systems, electronic warfare (both jamming and signal detection to track down enemy drone operators), and tank based drones are all in play to figure out how to best do things now.

As for cities, tanks have always had trouble in cities. This isn't a revelation of this war. Militaries tend to be skiddish of putting tanks in city fights unless they really have to. Russia particularly still has memories of Chechnya in this regard.

Yes. Back when analysts used to talk about a war with Russia pre-2022, something you heard pretty often was "they're not as advanced, but they have so much stockpiled armour".

This is like America running out of guns or Canada running out of syrup.

Yeah, the fact that Putin is not really pushing for a ceasefire means that they are not as out-of-stock as the headline suggests...

Covert Cobal has been classifying in mainly 4 categories. Abysmal is the lowest one, and are often missing such minor accessories as the turet, tracks, engines, and wheels. Not to mention having sat outdoors for upwards of 50 years. Those conditions are mostly what they're down to. It might allow for slightly higher throughout on production to start on these rusted husks rather than from raw steel, but it'd definitely be harder and more expensive to make these usable than to build a new tank from scratch.

https://youtube.com/@covertcabal

Is it that hard to understand? They are barely producing enough to keep up the war in Ukraine, but much compared to some European countries. When the war "ends" end they continue with their war economy for a few years, they are still producing a lot more than the European countries. Russia can continue with their strategy, but some Nato states need to change theirs.

Just like they would never attack Ukraine...