Currently, Russia has about 3,500 tanks, 7,300 infantry fighting vehicles and 4,500 armored personnel carriers, as well as 4,800 artillery systems, mortars and multiple rocket launchers, according to the Polish newspaper Defence24.
The publication, referring to the open data of the Russian Defense Ministry, named the number of combat vehicles that the Russian army will receive in 2021: more than 90 T-72B3 and T-72B3M tanks, about 80 T-80BVM tanks with a gas turbine engine, about 70 T-90M "Breakthrough" tanks, more than 120 BMP-3 units, more than 280 modernized BMP-2 with the Berezhok combat module and about 300 BTR-82A and BTR-82AM transporters.
"As you can guess, these figures probably do not include vehicles designed for the Marine Corps (for example, BMP-3F) and airborne troops (for example, BMD-4 and BTR-MDM "Shell")," the publication writes.
Defence24 will find it difficult to name among the above-mentioned shares of completely new and modernized combat vehicles, assuming that only the T-90M "Breakthrough", BMP-3 and BTR-82A "can be completely new". "Of course, all BMP-2M and BTR-82AM are restored from the old BMP-2 and BTR-80," the publication says.
According to Defence24, " Russia's ground forces, as well as its airborne and naval forces, are still among the largest in the world and are comparable in size only to the corresponding forces of the United States and China."
In September, the publication wrote that during the main stage of the strategic exercises "West-2021" at the Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, watched by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a B-19 infantry fighting vehicle with an Epoch combat module was shown, which turned out to be an "imperceptible revolution".
Ivan Potapov
