Russia is now turning to its own arms sale clients to get back the parts it needs to continue its war in Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

"Russia spent decades building its arms trade," a person with knowledge of the buybacks told the Journal. "Now they're going back in secret to their customers trying to buy back what they sold them."

According to the report, Russia is approaching countries it previously sold weapons to – including Pakistan, Egypt, Belarus, and Brazil – to replenish its stock of weapons and parts to make up for what has been expended in the war with Ukraine.

Officials visiting Cairo in April asked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi to give them back more than 100 engines used in Russian helicopters, according to the report.

The moves come despite Russia ramping up its own military arsenal production as the conflict looks to enter its third year amid the slowing Ukrainian counteroffensive.

"We don't know the extent to which they'll use the stocks to increase their tempo of attack or just keep up their current tempo," Konrad Muzyka, director of Rochan Consulting, military analysts based in Poland, told the Journal.

The Japan Times reported in September that Russia is trying to raise its annual artillery output to around 2 million shells, but that will still likely be short of what they need on the ground in Ukraine, where they are estimated to be firing between 10 million and 11 million rounds in a year.

"That's the predicament they've got," an unnamed western official told a small group of reporters. "If you expended 10 million rounds last year, and you're in the middle of a fight, and you can only produce 1 to 2 million rounds a year, I don't think that's a very strong position."

Russia might be able to produce around 200 tanks in a year, but that is also short considering the "heavy losses" the Russian Army has suffered in the fighting, the Journal reported.

"When you've lost 2,000 tanks, you've got a decade before you get to where you started," the official told the Journal, adding Russia had also lost 4,000 armored fighting vehicles, over 100 aircraft and suffered 270,000 casualties in the conflict, including both forces killed and wounded.

The report noted Russia is also calling on North Korea to help in replenishing weapons.

"It has to go to these dubious partners in order to prop up its catastrophic invasion of Ukraine," the official told the Journal. "And it will it cost a fortune because North Korea will squeeze out a good deal."

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