Russia’s vast stocks of Soviet-era weaponry are running out

The key issue is not manpower. Russia seems able to go on finding another 25,000 or so soldiers each month to maintain numbers at the front of around 470,000, although it is paying more for them. Production of missiles to strike Ukrainian infrastructure is also surging. But for all the talk about Russia having become a war economy, with some 8% of its GDP devoted to military spending, it is able to replace its staggering losses of tanks, armoured infantry vehicles and artillery only by drawing out of storage and refurbishing stocks built up in the Soviet era. Huge though these stocks are, they are not infinite.