<p >Footage from near the frontlines of ongoing Russian-Ukrainian hostilities has confirmed that the Russian Army has deployed a new variant of the T-72B3M main battle tank equipped with the new Arena-M active protection system. This follows reports in August that the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russian-army-rt90m-active-protection" target="_blank">new T-90M main battle tanks</a> currently in production <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/t90m-arenam-protection-missiles" >were integrating</a> the Arena-M system, and subsequent reports that T-72s modernised with similar levels of armour protection were also to receive the system. Russian tanks previously integrated only the Shtora soft kill protection system, which could not actively engage incoming projectiles but instead alerted the crew and helped tanks to mask themselves. The Arena-M uses a radar system to continuously monitor the surrounding environment for incoming threats, and when detecting an incoming projectile tracks it automatically, calculates its trajectory, and deploys protective munitions to intercept and destroy it before it impacts the tank. The most well known system of its kind is the Israeli Trophy, which was integrated onto the country’s Merkava IV tanks from 2008. Although Russia has been developing a hard kill active protection system since the 1990s, with multiple variants of the Arena system having been developed, a lack of funding resulted in these primarily being marketed for export.</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/19/article_67da255eb25092_27501063.png" title="Russian Army T-72B3 Near Frontlines in Kursk"></p><p >The lack of a hard kill active protection system had previously left Russian tanks behind the cutting edge, with the South Korean K2 using the KAPS active protection system, while the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/details-nkorea-next-generation-tank" >North Korean Chonma 2</a> and Chinese Type 99A integrated similar systems. Nevertheless, Western tanks have also remained behind in fielding such systems, as recently demonstrated by the&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/avoiding-aleppo-no-leopard2-abrams-tanks-ukraine" >vulnerability</a>&nbsp;of the&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/footage-uparmoured-ukrainian-abrams" >M1A1 Abrams</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-majority-ukraine-leo2" >Leopard 2&nbsp;</a>and&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/challenger2-destruction-ka52-kursk" >Challenger 2</a>&nbsp;in combat in Ukraine.&nbsp;Integration of the Arena-M onto the T-72B3 indicates that the tank class has continued to be prioritised to receive costly upgrades, despite being surpassed by the T-80BVM, T-90M and the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/t14-tested-troop-trials-armata" target="_blank">T-14 currently in development</a>. T-72B tanks built in the Soviet Union were modernised to this standard from the early 2010s, and integrated a new 2A46M-5 125mm smoothbore gun, V-92S2 1,000hp engine, Katherine FC thermal imaging system, digital displays, modern communications and the Sonsna-U gunner sight among other additions. Armour protection was improved with Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armour, with the enhanced T-72B3M receiving the new improved Relikt explosive reactive armour. </p><p >By 2020 close to 70 percent of T-72s had been brought up to the T-72B3/B3M standards, each at a very low cost. Further improvements to armour protection were implemented from mid-2022, likely in response to major losses to Ukraine’s primarily U.S.supplied anti-tank missiles. The integration of the Arena-M system represents the latest step in a long process to enhance the survivability of the Soviet-built vehicles, which were among the best protected in the world in the 1980s, but have faced the risk of falling behind advances in anti-tank weapons technologies without continuous upgrades.</p>