Procurement: July 20, 2004

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Russia is now selling tanks, or at least tank technology, to Pakistan. Whats remarkable about this is that, for decades, Russia has been the major supplier of tanks, and tank technology, to Pakistans major foe, India. Just this past April, Russian completed delivery of $800 million worth of T-90S tanks, tank technology and manufacturing technology to India. The most modern tanks Pakistan has are T-80UDs it bought from Ukraine. The T-90S is marginally better than the T-80UD. Perhaps Pakistan is just buying technology to upgrade their T-80UDs to match Indias T-90S. The reason Ukraine has a tank building industry is that, when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, whatever military equipment, or factories that existed, belonged to whatever new country they sat on. Ukraine thus inherited many Soviet weapons factories. But the largest tank manufacturing complex in the world, Uralvagonzavod, is in Russia, where the T-90S was developed and built, along with many other types of armored vehicles.