Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone according to plan as the Kremlin envisioned it, to say the least. With an estimated 200,000 casualties, 10,000 pieces of armor, and an accelerated demographic collapse, Moscow’s future as a major world player is uncertain.

At the start of 2022, the world feared Russia’s military prowess—until it didn’t. The introduction of early Cold War-era tanks are signs Moscow is suffering from a plethora of problems in weapons production. With ever-growing battlefield losses and sanctions, the nation is slowly becoming a European North Korea.

 T54s-T55s

The T54s-T55s are the oldest tanks Russia has brought out during the War in Ukraine thus far. Manufactured for service in the late 1940s, they were standard amongst the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact for several decades.

The T55s were notorious for being the tanks that crushed protestors during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and Prague Spring in 1968. When communist revolutions occurred, they became one of the main sources of exports for Moscow.