MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th January, 2019) A total of 30 legendary Soviet T-34 tanks have been transferred by Laos to Russia within the framework of defense cooperation between the two countries, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
"The Defense Ministry of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, within the framework of defense industry cooperation, transferred 30 fully operational T-34 tanks to the Russian Defense Ministry. Until recently, armored vehicles were in service with the army of Laos," the ministry's Department of Media Affairs and Information said in a statement.
The tanks are planned to be used during Victory Parades, as well as in museum expositions and films about the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War.
The military hardware was delivered to the city of Vladivostok by sea. Later, it will be sent to the Moscow Region by rail, according to the statement.
The T-34 was a technological breakthrough for its time, the ministry recalled. Between 1940 and 1946, the Soviet Union produced over 58,000 such tanks, however, to date only few of them remain operational.
The agreement on the transfer of the Soviet tanks was reached during Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's visit to Laos in January 2017.
