Ukraine Is Capturing Russia’s Old T-62 Tanks. Will It Use Them?

After losing around 700 tanks in Ukraine through this spring, the Russian army began pulling 50-year-old T-62 tanks out of long-term storage and sending them toward the front.

The Ukrainian army by then had captured hundreds of Russian tanks. It was only a matter of time before the Ukrainians got their hands on some intact T-62s, too. As Russia’s wider war in Ukraine grinds into its eighth month, the Ukrainian army has captured at least three T-62s that outside analysts can confirm.

Will the Ukrainians fix up these antique tanks and use them against the Russians? Every indication is—yes. The Ukrainian army doesn’t hesitate to use weapons even older than the T-62 is.

The 41-ton T-62 with its 115-millimeter main gun was in production in the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1975. It was the USSR’s most important tank until the T-72 entered service in 1969.

The Soviet army in the 1980s began shifting the T-62 to reserve units. The Russian army fully retired the type in the 2010s, by which time the T-62—a contemporary of the U.S. Army’s M-60—was hopelessly outmatched by modern Western tanks. Thousands of T-62s went into storage, many of them simply lying in rows in sprawling outdoor vehicle parks.

As Russia’s losses in Ukraine piled up, the Kremlin reached deeper and deeper for working weaponry to re-equip depleted units and equip, for the first time, reserve units it was standing up specifically for the Ukraine war. Videos and photos that circulated on social media starting in May depicted old T-62s arriving in southern Ukraine.

There was speculation the Russians would use the T-62s in defensive, constabulary roles far from the line of contact, where they would be safer from Ukraine’s Javelin missiles and upgraded T-64 tanks. But as the Ukrainians launched a broad counteroffensive starting in late August, even constabulary units came under fire.

The Ukrainians have destroyed at least five T-62s in addition to the three they’ve captured. No doubt more T-62s eventually will wind up posing for photos with their Ukrainian captors. Until then, are three very old tanks worth pressing into service?

Probably. Especially considering that the Ukrainian army includes second-line formations—territorials and national guard—that Kyiv doesn’t expect to lead complex, dangerous assaults and which visibly are hurting for heavy equipment.

It’s no coincidence that many of the improvised “Mad Max” vehicles analysts have spotted in Ukrainian service—trucks with welded-on anti-aircraft guns, armored tractors converted into tank-destroyers—belong to second-line units.

A territorial brigade probably wouldn’t say no to a handful of ex-Russian T-62s. And it probably could support them. “Every tank could be repaired, as long as it’s not been cut in half,” Volodymyr Voronin, then the deputy director of the Kyiv Armored Vehicles Plant, told Kyiv Post in 2015.

Besides, at least a few aging Ukrainian engineers have direct experience with T-62s. Kyiv inherited some of the old tanks from the Soviet army when Ukraine became independent in 1991. It’s still possible to see some of those rusting, ex-Soviet T-62s at a park in Kyiv.

It’s worth noting that the T-62 wouldn’t be the oldest tank in Ukrainian service. That honorific belongs to the M-55S, 28 of which Slovenia has pledged to Ukraine. The M-55S is a 1950s-vintage Soviet T-55 with upgrades.

On paper, a T-55—any T-55—is a hopelessly obsolete tank. But the Slovenians upgraded the M-55S with a new engine and a stabilized, British-made L7 105-millimeter main gun in place of the original Soviet 100-millimeter gun. The British gun is compatible with a wide range of modern ammunition, including armor-piercing sabot rounds that can penetrate the armor of a modern-ish T-72.

It wouldn’t be prohibitively difficult for the Ukrainians also to upgrade their ex-Russian T-62s—although installing new guns might take too long. Adding new radios and fresh layers of reactive armor is fairly straightforward, however.

The small number of T-62s Ukraine so far has captured and could return to service probably isn’t a problem, either. Ukrainian brigades have made use of other tank types that are just as rare as the ex-Russian T-62s are. T-84 Oplots, for instance.

All that is to say, expect T-62s eventually to show up in Ukrainian colors in service with some second-line Ukrainian brigade. And as more and more Russian tanks fall into Ukrainian hands, expect them to join the old T-62s, too.