Ukraine and India are planning to modernize T-72 tanks
Ukraine and India are working on plans to expand military-technical cooperation. The two sides are negotiating a program to modernize the T-72 tanks from the Armed Forces of India, a source in the defense sector said to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
“India is showing an interest in placing an order for the modernization of T-72 in Ukraine. Currently the parties are negotiating the organization of cooperation. The request from the Indian clients to upgrade the T-72’s, according to some estimates, includes more than one thousand units,” the message says.
According to the source, replacing the armored vehicle engine with a Ukrainian 1,200 horsepower 6TD-2 engine and equipping the tanks with air-conditioning and an autonomous power supply are among the main requirements from the Indian client.
The T-72 Ural is the most produced second-generation battle tank in service in countries of the former Soviet Union and was developed and manufactured by Uralvagonzavod (Nizhny Tagil, Russia).
This tank was exported to the Warsaw Pact countries, Finland, India, Iran, Iraq and Syria. T-72 modifications were produced under license in Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and India, which, in turn, also exported them.
India is one of the oldest and most promising partners of Ukraine in the sphere of military-technical cooperation. In 2009, the parties had concluded one of the largest contracts, worth approximately $400 million, to repair and upgrade 105 AN-32 machines in the Indian Air Force. Earlier, India had voiced interest in boosting bilateral military-technical cooperation in the field of technology transfer, establishing military production in India with the assistance of Ukrainian enterprises, as well as joint scientific research in the military field.
Ukraine aims to ensure a fivefold increase in the volume of military-technical cooperation with India by 2019, which should amount to $500 million a year.