British intel: Putin faced with insufficient defense production volumes to sustain war

Russian political leaders are aware that the country’s defense industry performance is failing to meet the needs of the Russian army to sustain the war against Ukraine.

That’s according to the British Defense Ministry citing an update delivered by the country’s intelligence.

It is noted that on February 9, Deputy Security Council Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called for an increase in Russian tank production while visiting the Omsk Transport Machine Construction plant. This follows several public comments by President Putin urging the defense industry to better support the “special military operation.”

In a televised meeting on 12 January 2023, Putin “castigated” Denis Manturov, the deputy prime minister responsible for the defense industry, for “fooling around”: one of the president’s strongest public outbursts since the invasion.

“Senior Russian leaders are likely aware that the state’s military industrial output is becoming a critical weakness, exacerbated by the strategic and operational miscalculation of invading Ukraine,” intelligence notes.

“Production is almost certainly falling short of the Russian MoD’s demands to resource the Ukraine campaign and restore its longer-term defence requirements,” the report concludes.

As reported, in the previous summary of British intelligence there was a sharp increase in the daily losses Russian troops suffer in the war against Ukraine due to the low quality of training, insufficient coordination, and lack of resources at the front.