This sounds like a bad joke or hilarious trolling at its best, but the media outlet has photos of the tanks on the move. Apparently, 100 T-72 tanks were simply loaded up and hauled “eastward,” in what is meant to look like the world’s biggest military blunder of recent years. If not ever.
If the tanks did go missing – and that’s a big “if” as of the time of press, since there’s no official confirmation for it –, Visegard24 implies it was not by theft. “The sudden appearance in the Donbas of a large number of T-72 of the Ukrainian army cannot be associated with the disappearance of 100 Polish tanks from Lublin. You can buy T-72 in any army store,” it says.
The alleged “theft” of the tanks comes against the backdrop of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, and President Zelensky’s recent plea to NATO and the U.S. to supply his army with weapons and vehicles. The T-72 tank, a staple in the former Soviet Union and famous for its lightweight, easy maneuverability and maintenance, was at the top of that list.
Earlier this month, NATO countries discussed the possibility of sending T-72 tanks into Ukraine, to help fight off the Russian invasion. Headlines at the time pointed out the irony of having Russian war machines turned against Russia, with many voices noting that Poland was the closest and ideal candidate for a fresh supply – particularly for the fact that it had over 400 T-72M1s, all of them undergoing modernization as of 2020. That said, if the tanks did go missing, it would mean thieves were somehow able to drive off with a quarter of the Polish military’s supply of T-72s.
The T-72 family went into production in 1969, both in Russia and the Soviet Union. Poland produced licensed versions of it, like many other countries. With each new model, improvements were brought to the original T-72, particularly to the armor, the V-84 engine, and the design, with modern versions being able to fire guided anti-tank missiles.
It is lightweight and compact, has nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) protection system, can travel in formation even on narrower roads, and can cross rivers as deep as 5 meters (16.4 feet) submerged. The T-72 is also easy to maneuver and maintain, and if the above report is true, very easily made to disappear.
*Update, April 19, 2022:
Indeed, one of the photos of the supposedly stolen T-72s being whisked away to some unknown destination on a Polish highway is not of a T-72 at all. It shows a BMP (Boyevaya Mashina Pyekhoty), a Soviet amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle.Rumors swirl in Poland about the Polish authorities discovering that 100 modernized T-72 M1R have disappeared from a storage facility near Lublin.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 11, 2022
Somebody also took this picture a few days ago of T-72s being transported east on a Polish highway.
May they find the thieves! pic.twitter.com/IkGDqo8ldj
Photo from a few days ago.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 13, 2022
Looks like the thieves who stole 100 Polish T-72s from a storage site near Lublin transported the tanks eastward after the theft.
The Polish police has received some evidence and has promised to investigate the matter after the summer holidays. pic.twitter.com/jsMKQ2ep6q
Ukraine has published a list of the weapons it needs the most:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 14, 2022
- T-72 Tanks
- S-300 SAMs / Buk air defenses or Western equivalents
-Multiple Launch Rocket Systems or the American rocket artillery HIMARS
- Military aircraft
- 155mm artillery & 152mm shells
- APCs, IFVs
Breaking: US is expected to help facilitate transfer of tanks from NATO allies to Ukraine, according to senior US officials. The tanks will be Soviet-era T-72 tanks, which Ukrainian military has experience operating and will be delivered “within days, not weeks,” I’m told.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 2, 2022
Google News