- Vladimir Putin said in an interview that India produces T‑90 tanks and that they are “considered among the best in the world.”
- He described India as a trusted defense partner and said Russia shares technology with New Delhi.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the T-90 tank family in an interview with India Today, calling it one of the best main battle tanks in the world and highlighting India’s domestic production of the platform.
“India produces our famous T-90 tanks. Believe me when I say these tanks are considered among the best in the world,” Putin said, referring to the Russian-designed tank that remains in widespread use across the Russian military and multiple export clients.
The comments come amid growing questions about the performance and survivability of Russian armored formations in Ukraine. Open-source intelligence group Oryx, which tracks confirmed equipment losses using visual evidence, reports that Russia has lost at least 203 T-90 family tanks during the war, including 11 export-standard T-90S units (originally intended for foreign customers but diverted to the Russian Army) and 146 of the modernized T-90M “Proryv” variant.
The loss figures cited by Oryx are considered conservative and reflect only visually confirmed cases.
Putin also emphasized Moscow’s long-standing defense ties with New Delhi, noting that Russia not only exports weapons and systems to India but also transfers sensitive production technology.
“India remains a trusted defense partner for Russia,” Putin said. “We are not just selling technology—we are sharing it, which is a rare thing in the field of military-technical cooperation.”
The T-90M, the latest version of the platform, is manufactured by UralVagonZavod and includes upgraded armor, electronics, and fire control compared to earlier iterations. It has been fielded widely across Russian Army units and touted by Russian officials as a core pillar of the country’s armored force modernization.
India’s T-90S variant is locally produced under license by Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) in Avadi, using Russian-supplied kits and domestically sourced components. India remains the largest foreign operator of the T-90 platform, with more than 1,100 tanks in service and several hundred more on order under past agreements.
While Russia continues to promote the tank’s combat effectiveness, battlefield reports suggest that T-90s are vulnerable to Western anti-tank weapons systems currently in use by Ukrainian forces, including Javelin missiles and FPV drones or even Bradley fighting vehicle guns.