It is widely known Russia is heavily reliant on railways for geographically distant deployments. This topic warrants a completely separate discussion, but to put it briefly, militaries in general do not want to conduct long road movements, especially with tracked vehicles, as this will tear up roads, use up fuel, and lead to breakdowns. As a relatively recent and relevant example, during the 2008 Georgia conflict, Russia attempted to move the majority of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division nearly 300 km from Chechnya into South Ossetia. One Georgian source stated up to 60-70 percent of tanks and armored vehicles broke down.1 As far as I am aware, precise figures are not publically available from Russia sources. However, the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) acknowledged non-combat losses “plagued” Russian units during their marches to South Ossetia.2 Open-air storage and poor maintenance contributed to this, as did the fact that many of the ground units involved in Georgia were operating older equipment, T-62M’s in the case of the 42nd. Soviet-era accounts of non-combat losses of armored formations during extended marches in World War 2 are also plentiful. Suffice it to say, the Russians are well aware of this. The dozens of abandoned, seemingly undamaged, T-80U’s and BV’s of the 4th Guards Tank Division during the present conflict suggest this is still a significant problem.
The way to avoid lengthy road marches is to move formations by rail as close as possible to the front. How close this is depends on the situation and what type of formation is being moved. Generally, it will be outside of effective artillery range. Having a rail-to-road transfer point and facilities helps, but Russia has also been known to offload at austere locations. Regardless, there will still be a certain distance that will still need to be covered by road, perhaps around 100 km, depending on tradeoffs between security, facilities, and operational need. A distance like that between Kupyansk to Izyum (82 km) comes to mind as a possible example, but I will point out I have seen very little open-source footage of Russian rail loading and offloading operations in the current conflict after the initial buildup. We (when I use the word we, I mean the broader OSINT community) have mostly assumed Kupyansk was a key rail hub while Izyum is too close for proper rail operations, but reporting also suggests Russia is offloading railcars, especially ammunition, much closer to the frontlines at times.
To cover the final distance from rail to the frontline, the commander can either elect to do a road march with his armored vehicles, and deal with the fuel consumption and maintenance costs associated with this, or, better yet, use heavy trucks with flatbeds to move them. In American parlance, HETs (Heavy Equipment Transporters) are used. In late-1980’s, Soviet HETs, comprising roughly 3500 MAZ-537s, were organized into “heavy lift regiments” at the TVD (theatre) level according to United States Army documents.3 These units appear to have been disbanded sometime after 1991. How Russia organized its MAZ-537s after 1991 and into the 2000s is unknown to me at present. It is possible they were split up between different motorized rifle, tank, and logistics (MTO) units or stored in various storage depots. Many of the MAZ-537s ended up in Ukrainian and Belarusian service.4 The trailer in widespread use is the ChMZAP-9990. Generally, the trailer carries either a tank or a BMP, but it appears two BMPs can also fit, in a somewhat ad-hoc manner.
In 2017, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the formation of three “многоосных тяжелых колесных тягачей (MTKT)” battalions of HETs.5 These three battalions are located in Chita, Khabarovsk, and Chebarkul. The Russians stated at the time each military district would receive a MTKT regiment, while combined arms armies (CAAs) would receive a battalion or company. A MTKT regiment would have 600 HETs and a company 30 HETs. A battalion, although not stated, probably has at least 100. These numbers would suggest Russia will allocate 3360 or more total HETs to these units eventually. Furthermore, it was also planned for these units to use the new KamAZ-65225s and Ural-63704s (specifically, the 63704-029), not the MAZ-537s, whose production ceased in 1990.
Tentatively, I currently believe these new units were not at full strength prewar. I was able to locate a possible location of the Chita MTKT battalion and counted about 50 HETs at various times in 2021, with almost all of them departing in 2022. Khabarovsk stores a massive amount of equipment in the southeast of the city with a number of HETs observed at Khabarovsk Radio Engineering Plant and an adjacent repair and technical base (В/Ч 23227). Similar to Chita, most of these HETs departed at various times in 2022. Chebarkul has many military facilities and I was not able to find a significant concentration of HETs at the time of this posting. As most training areas and garrisons have dedicated railheads, the mass movement of HETs is a decent, but not foolproof, indicator that either a major exercise is taking place outside of normal training areas, or that a significant, non-training, movement is underway.
Reports of large prewar HET exercises are relatively scant. One occurred in 2017 (concurrent with ZAPAD-17) in Penza Oblast with a battalion of approximately 100 KamAZ-65225s and Ural-63704s covering 250 km.6 Interestingly, the article describing this exercise uses the word “уникальными” or “unique” in describing this battalion and its new equipment. A short video of the exercise is available on YouTube. At current, my conclusion is Russia’s HET units are supplemented by other “relatively” modern military and civilian truck models, like the Ural-44202, KamAZ-4410, KamAZ-53504, and KamAZ-6450, which are all suitable for trailers with BMP or BTR sized vehicles, but not tanks. It is possible there may be a small number of the old MAZ-537s still in use, despite claims they have been completely replaced. The total number of tank-capable HETs in use are probably in the low thousands, and likely significantly lower than the late Soviet number of 3500.
Unfortunately, it is currently not possible for me to fully vet that number either as it is difficult to determine production levels for modern Russian trucks earmarked for the military across the board. The KamAZ-65225, for example, entered production in the early 2000s and, until 2012, was exclusive to the military.7 In April 2017, KamAZ reported 4462 trucks of all models were produced for the month, which, if this were a typical month would mean close to 53000 a year.8 What the breakdown looks like in terms of models and civilian vs military is unknown to me at present. I may be able to get a better number with more research.
Certain automotive subcomponents are Western produced and sanctions are having an impact on Russian truck production. KamAZ-65225s, for the most part, use the German-designed 16S1820 gearbox.9 These gearboxes were locally produced by a joint venture between KamAZ and the German ZF Group. Fortunately (although somewhat belatedly) the partnership ended in March 2022 and Russia recently nationalized the joint venture.10 ZF, for its part, claims its contracts exclude the military use of vehicle parts since 2014.
As the Russian buildup culminated in early 2022, Maxar observed HETs on imagery on several occasions. The largest HET observation, to my knowledge, was about 50 at the Brestsky Training Area on 24 February. The HETs at Brest are interesting. There is a railhead near the training area the Russians were using, so HETs technically weren’t needed. What may have happened is the 98th Guards Airborne Division elements, who were initially at Brest for the declared “Allied Resolve” exercise, used the HETs to quickly move to the Kyiv area once the invasion was underway. In doing so, they would have saved the time it takes to rail load. No direct evidence of this at the moment, just a theory. The rest of the HET imagery observations generally topped out around 10. Social media footage in the final days prior to 24 February occasionally would show several HETs.
However, in many places like Belgorod Oblast, where 1st Guards Tank Army massed, the Russians appear to have offloaded from railcars and then gone straight to their assembly areas along the border with minimal HET usage. This was not an inconsequential distance, anywhere between 50 km to 100 km in some places. How many vehicles broke down prior to reaching the border and did the Russians top off completely on fuel after arriving at their assembly areas? Furthermore, did Russia’s shortage of HETs and fuel constraints prevent them from committing all their forces? We don’t know the complete answer to these questions but is interesting to speculate on how this may have contributed to Russia’s lack of success at Sumy and other areas in northern Ukraine.
Senior Georgian official cited by Ariel Cohen and Robert E. Hamilton, The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2011), 34.
Mikhail Barabanov, Anton Lavrov, Rulan Pukhov, and Vyacheslav Tseluiko, The Tanks of August (Moscow: Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2010), 86.
LTC Kenneth M. Keltner and Graham H. Turbiville, Soviet Reinforcement in Europe (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical Information Center, 1987).
“Strategic Tractor. MAZ-537: from Minsk to Kurgan,” Topwar, April 14, 2020, https://topwar.ru/170155-tjagach-strategicheskogo-naznachenija-maz-537-iz-minska-v-kurgan.html.
“Tanks will be transported on ‘bicycles’,” Izvestia, June 21, 2017, https://iz.ru/608113/aleksei-ramm-dmitrii-litovkin/tankisty-peresiadut-na-tiazhelye-velosipedy.
“More than 100 armored vehicles were transferred to the Penza region from Mordovia,” RIAPO, September 7, 2017, https://riapo.ru/penza/society/v_penzenskuyu_oblast_iz_mordovii_perebrosili_bolee_100_edinits_bronetekhniki
“Heavy truck tractor KamAZ-65226: overview, specifications and reviews,” SpetsTrans, https://xn--90agckh4bek.xn--p1ai/marki/kamaz-65225-voennyj-tyagach.html.
Maria Rutskaya, “KamAZ production fell by 15 percent,” Motor, May 11, 2022, https://motor.ru/news/kamaz-production-11-05-2022.htm.
“KAMAZ-65225. General characteristics, main advantages and disadvantages,” Proogorod, https://proogorod.com/selhoztekhnika/kamaz/kamaz-65225-harakteristiki
“KAMAZ consolidated 100% of the joint venture with the German ZF for the production of gearboxes,” Interfax, November 10, 2022, https://www.interfax.ru/business/871841.