South Korea received 33 T-80U tanks as part of a deal to repay Russia's debt in the 1990s. The deal, called "Red Bear-1" or "Bul-Gom-1", was struck in 1995 after Russia was struggling economically.
The T-80U was produced between 1984 and 1997, and an estimated 3,000 were built. The T-80U was offered for export, and Cyprus and the Republic of Korea received some, but the T-80Us were never used in combat.
The T-80U tanks were the most powerful tanks in service with the Korean Armed Forces until the K2 tanks entered service in 2014. Most of the T-80U tanks in South Korea's inventory are now used for training and are no longer in frontline service.
by Usual-Scarcity-4910
19 comments
The russians would hate to hear that south korea is sending T80’s to Ukraine after having that big batch of north korean missiles destroyed.
Logistics. It would be cheaper to buy abrams.
Send it!
Exchange cabbage for tanks, they lover fermented cabbage
30 x T80U AND 30 x K2 would be best for both countries. Ukraine could improve his combat brigades and South Korea gets information about the effectiveness of their K2 tanks against Soviet hardware under wartime conditions. Such a deal would save Ukrainian lives today and South Korean lives later
It’s in every interest of South Korea to firmly push back against Russia who is actively trading with North Korea. Send them.
Honestly, I think it’s a good thing. Great news.
Won’t happen …. The koreans are more interested in looking after their own immediate interests, and making money.
They are more interested in not rocking the boat in their neighbourhood. Just look elsewhere, really.
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Why haven’t the French sent any Leclercs?
Pakistan has hundreds of them
How about every country donate half their ground machinery to ukraine.
SK intends to replace their armored defenses with their own Hyundai Heavy Industries Rotem homegrown MBT program.
How would SK even get these into Ukraine?
Train is not possible, too heavy for a plane I guess?
Not possible with a boat since the strait at Turkey is closed
Send em!!!
They didn’t mention the 70 bmp-3’s that they have. With the T-80’s that’s enough to outfit an mechanized brigade. 1armor bn and 2 mech bn’s.
Brazil has 12 Mi-35M produced in 2010 and sent to storage in 2022 due to the lack of a maintenance contract with Russia.
Brazilian service is quite light to such an equipment.
What about AV-TM 300s from Brazil?
North Korea is supplying Russia, and Russia is helping NK. I feel like we live in a weird age of geopolitics where shit like “allies” like Russia and Iran are fighting on opposite ends of an information war in the United States but at the same time are sharing arms and technology. If scummy countries like that can cooperate on some things and disagree on others than democracies can do the same thing.
they also have about 70 BMP-3 that also don’t fit into their inventory.
And of course a lot of other stuff that is a bit older and already taken out of service but still in storage. So there are some possibilities.