At the MILEX-2023 defense exhibition in Minsk, the Belarusian military showcased a range of new domestic military equipment, most notably the new T-72BM2 main battle tank, which was prominently displayed at the center of the event. The T-72 forms the backbone of the Belarusian Army tank force, with about 600 tanks in service, and these tanks are preferred over the higher-end T-80 tanks that Belarus inherited from the Soviet Union because of their lower maintenance requirements, operating costs and fuel Much more expensive – resulting in the T-80 being sold to Yemen despite their advantages in mobility and armor protection. While Belarus has upgraded some of its T-72s to the T-72B3 standard with Russian support, most tanks in service still have the basic Soviet-era capability, the standard T-72B. The T-72BM2 upgrade kit from the Belarusian Repair Plant 140 offers the Belarusian military and foreign customers an alternative to upgrade their tanks with 21st century fire control, armor protection and equipment, and has the potential to be widely adopted not only by Belarus, but possibly The Russian military itself, reportedly has been working to upgrade many of the aging T-72s that were brought out of storage in time for use on the Ukrainian front.
The T-72BM2 upgrade package is Report Field testing will take place at the military’s 174th training range in July 2022, although MILEX-2023 has provided the first up-close look at its capabilities. When first mentioned in July, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin declared: “The T-72BM2 fully meets the necessary requirements and is already undergoing a series of tests, after which it will be decided on mass production and acceptance into service with the Belarusian army. Most importantly, it is Our tanks, made by our people.” The tank uses new Belarusian third-generation explosive reactive armor, which is very similar to the Russian Relikt – much better than the first-generation Kontakt-1 and T-72B currently fielded in Belarus. -72B3 The second generation Kontakt-5 has been significantly improved. The tank’s fire control gear also benefits from new thermal imaging sights, including the Sosna-U gunner’s sight with a thermal imager, which has day/night and all-weather combat capabilities. It also benefits from a new laser rangefinder and wind sensor for greater precision.
The armor protection of the new tank is likely to be far superior to the standard Russian T-72B3 with Kontakt-5 armor, although it is significantly less maneuverable due to its weaker engine. More ambitious Russian upgrade packages, such as the T-72B3M, and an unnamed configuration with more comprehensive armor upgrades, first appearing in 2022, are speculated to be named T-72B4, but are still considered far superior overall in the new Belarusian version. “T-72B4” brings armor protection standards much closer to the level of the most powerful tank of the Russian Army, the T-90M. Some of the most obvious changes include stronger side armor, and the track armor is very similar to that of the T-90M. New smoke emitters and an iron grid similar to the T-90M’s under the turret were also installed. Its blast protection around the smoke grenade launchers was also the first of its kind seen on any T-72 variant.
Over 1,000 low-cost upgrade kits for the T-72 were widely purchased by the Russian military in the 2010s, and the cost of upgrading a Soviet-built vehicle to T-72B3 standard cost a little over $200,000 – although the B3M model, which began to be purchased later, cost more at In these ten years. The T-72BM2 was likely developed with some Russian support to allow Belarus to move its own armor forward from its current almost obsolete state in an equally cheap manner. However, the program will almost certainly be launched before February 2022, meaning that lessons from the Ukrainian war are unlikely to be applied to the design – one of which is the need for an equivalent to the “T-72B4” in 2022 The level of armor protection is to maintain the survivability of the crew. The T-72’s role in the Russian military itself is waning as the country ramps up production of the T-90M tank to more than 1,000 tanks a year and moves closer to bringing the next-generation T-14 into full service. Belarus is speculated to be a potential customer for the T-90M once the current hostilities in Ukraine end, as the country’s armed forces are increasingly integrated with Russia’s and its territory is geographically on the NATO front . Modernization of Belarusian military capabilities has become even more urgent with neighboring Poland investing heavily in modern armor, most notably hundreds of state-of-the-art South Korean K2 tanks and their accompanying South Korean artillery and rocket assets .