Ukraine’s allies have settled on one of the easiest ways to gift tanks to the Ukrainian war effort: pay Czech firm CSG Defense to take old Soviet-designed T-72Ms from the 1980s, swap out the engines and some of the electronics, add reactive armor, redesignate them as “T-72EAs” and ship them off.
Denmark last month pledged to Ukraine at least 15 T-72EAs as part of a $520-million aid package that also includes BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, engineering vehicles, drones and ammunition.
The pledge brings to 105 the number of T-72EAs Ukraine’s allies have paid for on Ukraine’s behalf. The United States and The Netherlands earlier this year chipped in to buy 90 of the upgraded tanks.
The 47-ton, three-person T-72EA isn’t the best tank in Ukraine’s inventory. But it also isn’t the worst—and it has the benefit of being available at a time when Ukraine is hurting for tanks both to replace combat losses and also equip new mechanized brigades that are standing up.
There are hundreds of old T-72Ms in storage in former Warsaw Pact countries across Europe. Each is a candidate for the EA upgrade.
The T-72EA “addresses some of the main issues of the original T-72, especially in the fields of firing abilities, mobility and protection,” CSG Defense stated.
The upgrade replaces the old 780-horsepower diesel engine with an 840-horsepower model, installs new radios and a modern thermal imager and adds layers of reactive armor.
The T-72EA still is a T-72 and has some fundamental flaws. For starters, its ammunition stowage is underneath the turret. Hit the ammo with an armor-piercing round, and the resulting secondary explosion tends to pop off the turret and kill everyone inside.
But within the limitations of the basic T-72 design, the T-72EA is among the better variants. The Russian T-72B3 and Polish PT-91 might have superior optics and fire-controls, but probably not by much. It’s not for no reason that the Ukrainians so far have lost just a handful of the 90 T-72EAs they had in service before the recent Danish pledge.
As Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its second year, the T-72 actually is taking on increasing importance—on both sides. Stocks of war-reserve T-90s and T-80s seem to running out in Russia, possibly leaving whatever older T-72s still are in storage as the best option as the Kremlin tries to make good combat losses while production of new tanks gradually ramps up.
And for Ukraine, T-72s and variants from the Czech Republic and Poland help to compensate for the meager consignment of Leopard 2s—just 71, so far—the country has gotten from its NATO allies.
The Ukrainians have lost at least 11 of their Leopard 2s, and expect to get 14 more as replacements next year. Fourteen ex-British Challenger 2s and 21 American-made M-1s round out Ukraine’s arsenal of modern Western-style tanks. Even counting the 200 thinly-protected Leopard 1s Ukraine is getting, its total inventory of Western tanks might eventually total 350.
But Ukraine loses that many tanks in a year. While the United States might eventually offer more M-1s, there’s no indication Germany or some other Leopard 2-user is prepared to give away more of their Leos. If the war continues into 2025—and to be clear, the Kremlin expects that it will do so—Kyiv probably will need to get its tanks from somewhere else.
That somewhere else might be the Czech Republic.
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