The American publication The National Interest released a ranking of the world's best tanks, placing the Russian T-72 in first place. This ranking analyzed survivability and protection, range and the ability to conduct prolonged combat without resupply, adaptability to modernization, ease of production, as well as multifunctionality and strategic impact on the battlefield. The T-72 topped the list, surpassing the American M1 Abrams and the Israeli Merkava V, which took second and third places respectively.

The authors of the ranking directly point to a pragmatic approach to assessing combat effectiveness. In an era of expensive and complex machines, such as the T-14 Armata, it is the old and proven T-72 that remains the main tool for victory. It is cheap, easy to mass-produce, and if lost, can be easily replaced by a new machine. Among its main advantages, it is noted that the tank has maintained its relevance for several decades through constant modernizations, such as the T-72B3M, and the use of an automatic loader allows the crew to be reduced to three people and the weight to 45 tons.

The National Interest emphasizes that in modern conflicts with an abundance of drones and ATGM, the decisive factor is not extreme technological sophistication, but the equipment's ability to scale and maintainability. The T-14 Armata or the German Leopard 2 proved too expensive and technically complex for a mass war of attrition, while the T-72's resources allow the front line to be saturated without critical strain on the military budget.

In addition to purely utilitarian qualities, the publication also noted the symbolic significance of the machine: the T-72 is in service with almost fifty countries, and its export potential and recognition have an independent deterrent effect. Thus, the victory in the ranking is due not to futuristic characteristics, but to the harsh economics of war, where quantity and reliability outweigh unique super-developments.

Earlier, www1.ru reported that Uralvagonzavod recognized the enormous potential of the half-century-old T-72 tank.