Russian military complete maintenance of T-34 tanks that arrived form Laos
MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) - The maintenance and repair battalion of the Kantemirovskaya Division has completed maintenance of 30 T-34-85 tanks that earlier arrived from Laos, the Western Military District's (WMD) press service said on Tuesday.
"The final stage of the work was painting of tank bodies and covering them with red stars and registration numbers. We used almost five tonnes of paint and two tonnes of fuels and lubricants," the WMD said in a statement.
The cooling system anti-freeze has been checked and changed in the tanks. All major units have been lubricated, and preventive diagnostics carried out on pre-heaters and the vehicles' systems in general, it said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on January 9 that the Lao Ministry of Defense had handed Russia 30 fully operational T-34 tanks as part of military-technical cooperation. The agreements on the return of T-34 tanks to Russia were reached during Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's visit to Laos back in January 2018.
More than 58,000 T-34 tanks were assembled from 1940 through 1946. Now, 70 years on, only a few of those remain operational.
Interfax reported earlier in January that Russia had delivered several upgraded T-72B1 tanks and a batch of Yakovlev Yak-130 trainer aircraft to Laos.