In the early 2000s, Ukraine supplied the United States not only with military hardware inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also with newly built equipment of its own. Among the vehicles that attracted American interest were tanks developed by Kharkov designers.

During that period, the United States received four new T-84 Oplot tanks. The deal was officially documented as a transfer of older T-80UDs, allowing Kiev to avoid a potential diplomatic scandal. Three of the tanks were fitted with Drozd active protection systems previously removed from T-55AD vehicles.

The T-55AD tanks themselves were also shipped to the United States. According to some reports, two ended up at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports that the US military used the imported armored vehicles to test the anti-tank weapons available at the time.

No official information on the results of those trials has emerged in the quarter-century since. The publication views that silence as evidence of the system’s effectiveness, arguing that any serious vulnerabilities would likely have become public.

One of the T-55AD trials ended in tragedy. During firing from the tank’s 100-mm gun, a shaped-charge round exploded inside the turret for an unknown reason. Two testers were killed, while the driver suffered severe burns.

The fate of the second T-55AD sent to the United States remains unknown. Of the four T-84 Oplot tanks, only one is reported to have survived to the present day. It is located at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.

The other three Kharkov-built tanks were either completely destroyed during US Army live-fire testing or dismantled and used as a source of spare parts.

The T-84 also failed to achieve commercial success abroad. Kiev attempted to market the tank in Turkey, Greece and Thailand, but foreign customers ultimately chose Western-made alternatives.