Say the world T-90M, and most military experts up until the Ukraine war would instantly reflect on a tank that was once considered one of the best on Earth.
But can the T-90M take on the M1 Abrams or some of the best tanks out there?
So far, at least looking a social media coverage of the tank, the T-90M has been disappointing.
Russians Try And Fail to Recover T-90M Tank – Incredible video footage recorded from above shows Russian forces somewhere in Ukraine desperately trying to recover a partially destroyed Russian T-90M tank.
In the video, shared on Telegram and Twitter back in March, a Russian BREM-1 is seen maneuvering in such a way as to begin towing the damaged tank.
The video shows the BREM-1, an armored recovery vehicle, pushing the T-90M tank so Russian soldiers can hook it up and prepare it to be towed away.
In the distance, a BMP-3 can be seen burning out among rubble and the remains of residential buildings damaged in strikes.
The damaged tank appears to have endured significant damage. Rob Lee, an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, noted that the tank seemed to have lost part of its track.
“Video of a Russian BREM-1 trying to recover a damaged T-90M tank that lost parts of its track. Looks like a BMP-3 on fire at the end,” Lee writes on Twitter.
At the end of the video, the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle is shown still on fire and almost completely destroyed.
The original Telegram post that contained the video footage confirmed that the burning vehicle was a BMP-3 and that the video was recorded somewhere in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine.
T-90-series tanks are the most advanced available to the Russians, and as few as 20 new tanks are being manufactured at just two functioning domestic tank manufacturing facilities.
Every tank is valuable to the Russian military at this stage in the war, but particularly the more modern T-90M.
Troops in the video were likely hoping to move the tank to a safe place so that it could be refitted with new tracks and undergo other repair and refurbishment measures so it can later be deployed.
Medvedev Says T-90M Outperforms Western Tanks
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said online back in March that Russia’s T-90M tank outperforms both the Leopard and Abrams tanks manufactured by Germany and the United States, respectively.
“We produce worthy types of armament, military and special hardware and weapon systems. The brand names are well known and I can mention just several of them. It is quite obvious that, say, the T-90M ‘Proryv’ is our newest tank. But, to my mind, this is the best tank in the world. In the world! It is, undoubtedly, superior to the Leopard, the Challenger or the Abrams, especially in terms of its performance characteristics and its mass,” Medvedev wrote on social media network VKontakte.
Video of a Russian BREM-1 trying to recover a damaged T-90M tank that lost parts of its track. Looks like a BMP-3 on fire at the end. https://t.co/hGyRSeE9Ik pic.twitter.com/FlHNFoj4p6
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 24, 2023
The Russian official also promised that 1,500 of the tanks will be manufactured this year. However, it is unclear how Russia intends to dramatically increase its manufacturing capacity without the help of foreign allies.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
