New Russian tanks arrive with upgraded protection

Russia’s state-owned tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod has delivered another batch of T-90M “Proryv” and T-72B3M tanks to the Russian Army, the company said, timed to coincide with Russia’s Tank Crew Day.

As with previous shipments, Uralvagonzavod did not disclose how many tanks were included in the batch or where they are headed.

The company said the delivered vehicles carry improved all-around protection, part of what it describes as continuous work to upgrade armor on its tanks. Footage released with the announcement shows a T-90M fitted with an all-round protection kit Uralvagonzavod says took roughly two years to develop, covering the turret with a screen built from woven steel cable, adding armor over the running gear, and protecting the hull sides with rubber strips mounted on spring-loaded supports. Recent Uralvagonzavod shipments have also included nets meant to intercept first-person-view drones before impact and electronic-warfare equipment built to jam drone signals, though the company did not specify which of those additional features, if any, appear on this particular delivery.

Tank Crew Day marks its 80th observance this year. The holiday, established in the Soviet Union in 1946 and held on the second Sunday of September, has become a recurring occasion for Uralvagonzavod to publicize tank deliveries, alongside Victory Day each May.

“The Tank Crew holiday symbolizes the unbreakable link between production and the battlefield,” said Alexander Potapov, general director of Uralvagonzavod. He credited today’s tank crews and factory workers with carrying forward what he called the legacy of the T-34, the Soviet tank credited with helping win World War II, and thanked both groups for their service.

A driver-testing engineer at the plant described reliability as the most important quality in a combat vehicle, noting that Uralvagonzavod runs each tank through at least a 100 km (62 mile) test drive, along with checks of its weapons, navigation equipment and other onboard systems, before it ships to the military.

The T-90M is the most advanced and expensive tank in Russia’s T-72/T-90 lineage, built around a newly designed welded turret with Relikt reactive armor and a remotely operated machine gun mount that lets the crew engage targets without exposing themselves outside the vehicle. Russia has fielded it as an interim upgrade while its newer T-14 Armata tank remains stuck in prolonged trials years after it was first unveiled. The T-72B3M is a modernized rebuild of the far older, mass-produced T-72 platform, valued for being cheaper and more readily available than the T-90M even as it offers less advanced protection and fire control.

Independent researchers at Oryx, an open-source group that tracks visually confirmed equipment losses, estimate Russia has lost more than 4, 400 main battle tanks since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, more than the size of the tank fleet it invaded with. Those losses have pushed Uralvagonzavod to refurbish older tanks pulled from storage alongside new production, and claims from Russian officials describing their tanks as the best in the world have been disputed by Ukrainian officials and Western defense analysts.