Hundreds of Russian Tanks Abandoned



(Yekaterinburg, Russia) Strangest sight. It's like the tank battalion commander ordered all units to pull over to the side of the road, turn off the engines and send the tank crews home.

Locals in a nearby village said the tanks had been sitting there for almost four months covered in snow. The armoured vehicles were identified as a mixture of T-80 and T-72 battle tanks, the workhorses of the Russian army.

"We were shocked," Pavel L, a local, told Russian media. "It is like you can sit behind the wheel, start up the engine and drive off and nobody would notice!"

A military spokesman claimed the tanks were in fact being guarded by special patrols and were in the process of being dispatched to a military base. But military prosecutors appeared sceptical about his claims and opened an official investigation. Wary of further bad publicity, the army has urgently begun relocating the tanks.

As a scandal and an embarrassment, the abandoned tank story will soon be forgotten. However, as an indicator of the organization and readiness of the Russian military, the tank story arguably tells us that the Russian Army has some significant management weaknesses.