The T-80 was the Soviet Union’s last major tank project: thousands of examples of the battle tank, based on the T-64 of the 1960s, are said to have been stored in Russian depots. Lately, the model has been increasingly seen on the battlefields of Ukraine – upgraded with additional armor and jammers to withstand rocket-propelled grenades and drones. Russia has even restarted mass production of the 40-year-old tank at a factory in Siberia.
Russia is said to have lost more than 600 T-80 tanks in Ukraine, and more than 1,100 of the older T-72, which was used in even greater numbers. However, the arsenal, which was produced during the Soviet era and neglected almost all other sectors of society, is not exhausted: more than 9,000 T-72s and 3,400 T-80s are said to still be stored in Russian depots, and there are also hundreds of copies of the T-80 predecessors, the T-64 and T-62 and the T-72 successor T-90. The latter – like Putin’s most modern T-14 main battle tank – would actually be technologically more advanced than the T-80. But the older tank has something that no other Russian tank has.
Source: Krone
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