There is a Ukrainian tank at the Malyshev tank factory. The cranes are yellow.
Russian forces are trying to chip away at Ukraine's ability to repair damaged vehicles and equip its army.
When it comes to armored vehicles, attacking factories might not make much of a difference. The Ukrainians are finding ways to fix battle- damaged vehicles without sending them to big, easy-to-target factories.
The Kremlin said on March 14 that it intended todisable enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine that manufacture, repair and restore weapons that nationalists use to commit war crimes.
The Russian government calls the war crimes they are accused of a defensive campaign of national survival for millions of Ukrainians.
The Russians have been bombarding Ukrainian arms plants since the beginning of the war. The Myshalev tank factory complex in the eastern city of Kharkiv was the site of two Russian bombardments on February 25 and March 2.
The State Aircraft Repair Plant in western Ukraine was damaged by Russian cruise missiles on March 18. The Ukrainian air force has dozens of MiG-29s.
The Myshalev plant, which has produced and upgraded T-64 tanks and other vehicles for the Soviet army, then for the Ukrainian army and export customers, has been the site of photos that depict captured Russian vehicles undergoing repair.
The photos implied that work at the Myshalev factory wasn't completely stopped by the first attacks on Kharkiv. As the war enters its fifth week, it is not clear if the facility is still in operation.
Don't expect Ukraine to suffer a lot because of its ability to fix tanks. Myshalev is the biggest tank-repair facility in Ukraine. Smaller facilities could pick up any slack caused by Myshalev.
Asking what it takes to repair a tank is worth it. Hundreds of T-64s and their variant are used by Ukrainian forces, as well as newer but simpler T-72s. You need cranes and hoists to shift immobile tanks and remove turrets.
You need welders, mechanics, and electricians after that. It isn't necessarily precision work that requires a big facility.
It might take a little more skill to fix ballistic computers. Fixing a tank is like fixing a truck. In eastern Ukraine, ask the tank mechanics.
The mechanics turned a factory that once produced mining equipment into a do-it-yourself tank plant. The captured Ukrainian vehicles were fixed by the workers.
The plant's assistant manager told a reporter that they started with armored vehicles.
In government-controlled Ukraine, that is already evident. The deputy commander of one of the territorial battalions oversaw a junkyard where workers stripped and rebuilt captured vehicles.
Oleksandr Fedchenko, an auto mechanic in Kyiv, transformed his garage into a repair facility for ex-Russian hardware. We made a prototype model.
The cranes needed to remove the turret from the T-64 might not be available in the Kyiv sites. There are many small industrial facilities that have cranes. If they haven't already done military work, expect more of them to.
The big tank factory may be in ruins. That doesn't mean thatUkraine can't fix its tanks.
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