As NATO and Ukraine allies are sending tanks to the war effort and Russia sustains heavy equipment losses, Vladimir Putin is moving to modernize a crumbling fleet of 60-year-old Soviet tanks for its Ukraine war effort.
A video from Russian parliament member Andrey Gurulev showed a visit to a repair plant that is refurbishing and modernizing 800 obsolete T-62M tanks from as far back as the eras of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, according to reports.
The 103rd Armored Tank Repair Plant is working to "transform tanks that are more than 50 years old into modern normal machines capable of carrying out objectives and meet challenges on the front lines," according to Gurulev.
"Now it's a totally different tank that can work."
The upgrades to the "ancient" and "looking worse for wear" tanks include engine, controls, and communication systems overhauls before being sent to the front lines in Ukraine, the New York Post reported.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense issued an intelligence report of retrofitting "vintage" Soviet tanks due to "heavy armored vehicle losses."
"There is a realistic possibility that even units of the 1st Guards Tank Army (1 GTA), supposedly Russia's premier tank force, will be re-equipped with T-62s to make up for previous losses," according to the U.K. March 6 intelligence bulletin.
There have been reports of Russian BTR-50 armored personnel carriers being spotted in Ukraine, the Post reported.
Since last summer 800 T-62s "have been taken from storage" to be upgraded with night vision systems, but those still have outdated armor unable to defend against modern weaponry, according to the U.K.
Russia's new reliance on old equipment comes as Leopard 2 battle tanks are being sent to Ukraine for its defense amid the ongoing war. The first arrived in late February on that first anniversary of Putin's "special military operation."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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