Moscow said Tuesday that it had captured several German Leopard tanks and US Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, releasing footage showing Russian troops surveying the equipment supplied to Ukraine by Western countries.
"Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. These are our trophies. Equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporizhzhia region," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
"Servicemen of the Vostok group inspect enemy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles captured in battle."
Kyiv has appealed to its allies in the West to deliver a broad range of modern military equipment to help Ukrainian forces recapture large swathes of territory controlled by Russian forces.
The defence ministry said several of the captured vehicles had working engines, suggesting that this suggested the battles they were involved in had been short and that Ukrainian troops had "fled" their offensive positions.
Agencies add: It comes as Germany's defence minister admitted the country will not immediately be able to replace the tanks it has provided to Ukraine.
Berlin earlier this year started sending advanced Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, after months of pleas from Kyiv for the heavy weapons to bolster its fightback against Russia.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told broadcaster RTL in an interview aired late Monday that 'we will not be able to replace every tank that is now out of action'.
He refused to confirm the authenticity of images circulating online purportedly showing some of the tanks damaged in battle.
But he added that 'unfortunately it is the nature of war that weapons are destroyed, that tanks are destroyed and people are killed.
'That is why our support for Ukraine is so important.'
Other Ukrainian and German politicians have been calling for rapid resupply of tanks given the destruction of the armaments.
Pistorius said Berlin would continue to supply the less advanced Leopard 1 tanks, and there would be over 100 by the end of the year.
After coming under sustained pressure, Berlin in January agreed that the German-made tanks could be sent to Ukraine.
The government has so far delivered 18 of the advanced Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
In an attempt to avoid a further depletion of military stocks as the war in Ukraine rumbles on, the heads of leading arms-making companies meet NATO defence ministers this week to discuss increasing production and standardising artillery shells.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned in February that Kyiv was burning through shells much faster than Western countries could produce them. The start of Ukrainian counteroffensive is certain to lead to even greater use.
But the lack of common standards among the various manufacturers has hampered the flow of munitions supplies.
'It is about supercharging the NATO standardisation process in order to enable smoother supplies, which will help prevent delays and shortfalls in the future,' a NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters ahead of the meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
Those invited include BAE Systems, Turkish drone maker Baykar, General Dynamics, the KNDS holding representing Leopard 2 producer KMW and French Nexter, Kongsberg, Leonardo, Lockheed, MBDA and Northrop Grumman, according to a defence source.
NATO has been talking with industry representatives about boosting defence production since last year, but this is the first time the alliance holds such a high-level gathering.
Discussions on Thursday will focus on ways how to ramp up supplies of artillery shells, air defences and precision guided deep-strike ammunitions, missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometres such as the British Storm Shadow.
Demand for 155mm artillery rounds has soared in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But allies' supplies for their own defence have been run down as they have rushed shells to Kyiv, which fires thousands of rounds per day.
While NATO enforces standards for rounds fired by small arms such as assault rifles, enabling troops from all allies to use each others' munitions, it is not so easy for artillery shells.
Although some large NATO countries have agreed on certain standards for the 155mm rounds used by howitzers, additional calculations are often needed to hit a target with the required precision, experts say.
The NATO official said companies themselves have an interest in producing rounds that can be fired by multiple countries, with orders worth billions of euros expected as the war drags on in Ukraine.
A defence industry source welcomed NATO's push for more standardisation and called it 'long overdue'.
'If national governments could bring themselves to throw national standards overboard and agree on common NATO standards - in particular with regard to munitions - this would be a landslide change,' the defence source said.