Why does Russia still operate T-72 tanks?

[The system works for them]

With this looming crisis in Ukraine, reports of Russian troop movements has caused several pictures and videos to appear on news networks and social media. One of these pictures depicted T-72's being offloaded from a train next to Russian soldiers standing around with old Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders. If it wasn't for the quality resolution of the pictures, I would swear its a scene from the early 1980's.

So my question is, why are the Russians using such dated hardware? maybe its not the entirety of the Russian armed forces but from what i'm seeing, they're still using cold war-era technology. The T-72 is so incredibly old and useless in terms of modern warfare that it was sold in mass to third world countries to use such as Iraq and Syria. The only thing the US and NATO uses them for is target practice on proving grounds.

I was under the impression that the Russians were stepping up their game and revamping their military into the 21st century but wow maybe not.

[lady]

Because they are welfare

[radhika]

These are probably trial runs

[webcatman]

Their military is in poor state. That is the best they have any more. Their navy is almost non-existent due to lack of maintenance. If they did not have a few nuclear weapons that may possibly still deploy they would barely be considered a viable threat to anyone.

[Kevin]

Since their military has tanked over the years!

"I was under the impression that the Russians were stepping up their game and revamping their military into the 21st century but wow maybe not."

That is what you get when your primary source of Russian military information is taken from COD.

[smart Alec]

because they don't need to bring anything better to...


...
SECURE THEIR STANDING BASES in Crimea.
...


they are NOT invading the country. they do NOT expect a fight, much less a fair one. they DON'T need to bring the topnotch gear of limited numbers into this fight.

T-72 performance was skewed by allahuakbar jockeys operating those tanks in recent wars. rest assured, it's a fair tank in hands of competent tankers.

[☦ICXCNIKA ☦]

Those were T-90's in general Russian tanks are all evoltions and upgrades of older designs.