WHAT IT IS
The T-90M “Proryv” (Breakthrough) is the current production Russian main battle tank on the T-72/T-90 line: three-man crew, 125 mm smoothbore, carousel autoloader, welded turret, Relikt explosive reactive armour, Kalina digital fire control, V-92S2F 1,130 hp diesel. UKBTM designed it; Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil builds it. Serial deliveries to the Russian Army from about 2020 after a long Proryv-3 modernization path off the T-90A / T-90AM / export T-90MS.
Combat weight is usually printed 48 t (some sheets 46.5–51). That is twenty tons under a late Abrams or Leopard 2A7. Height about 2.22 m. The philosophy is the old Soviet one: smaller silhouette, autoloader instead of a fourth man, accept a carousel under the crew, build enough of them that UVZ’s line matters more than a 70-ton boutique tank.
FROM T-90 TO M
T-90 (Object 188) was a T-72B with a T-80U-style welded turret, Kontakt-5, and Shtora soft-kill, accepted in the 1990s when money for T-80U dried up. T-90A added a better welded turret and a thermal sight. T-90AM / T-90MS were the export-shaped “Proryv” demonstrators: Relikt, remote 12.7 mm, bustle rack, Kalina. T-90M is that package as a Russian Army production tank, plus field kits learned after 2022 (roof screens, extra Relikt, cages — configuration is not one photograph).
T-90M2 “Ryvok-1” appears in 2025–26 industry leaks as the next serial mark (UVZ papers talking a small 2026 pilot batch then a mixed T-90M/M2 surge). Treat M2 as a planned follow-on, not a widely fielded type yet.
HULL AND TURRET
Length overall ~9.6 m with gun. Width ~3.78 m. Crew: commander, gunner, driver. New welded turret with more internal volume than the early T-90 cast/weld mix. Part of the ammunition is in a rear bustle with blow-off intent; 22 rounds stay in the autoloader carousel under the turret floor — the classic T-72/90 layout. Anti-spall liner (Kevlar-class) inside. Dozer blade on the lower glacis for a scrape-down firing position.
Russian handbook-class protection numbers ( Relikt included, not laboratory gospel): hull front ~550 mm vs APFSDS and >800 mm vs HEAT; turret front ~950 mm vs APFSDS and >1,200 mm vs HEAT; hull side ~80 mm steel plus Relikt ~600 mm vs HEAT. Those are the Wikipedia-style figures. Real resistance depends on angle, round, and whether the ERA block is still there.
PROTECTION SUITE
Base: composite glacis and turret with high-hardness plates. ERA: Relikt (third-generation, tandem-HEAT job) on turret and hull, modular. Kontakt-5 is the older T-90 look; Relikt is the M tell. Soft-kill: Shtora-type IR jammers and smoke are in the family; not every M photo still wears the full Shtora “eyes.” Hard-kill: Arena-M is the planned APS, not a standard fit on every hull that left Tagil. Also: slat/cage and roof kits seen in the field, NBC, automatic fire suppression, smoke mortars.
Relikt is the serious change versus Kontakt-5. APS is the change that is still uneven.
GUN AND AMMO
Serial gun is the 125 mm 2A46M-5, 48-caliber, chromed, tighter geometry and stabilizer than older 2A46M. Popular Russian copy sometimes prints 2A82-1M (the T-14 gun). That is not the safe default for a production T-90M; 2A46M-5 is.
Autoloader 22. Total ready/stowed ~40. Rate 6–8 rounds/min on the card. Fires APFSDS including longer Svinets-1/2 (3BM59/60) that the new loader was built to swallow, HEAT, HE-Frag, and gun-launched missiles (9M119M Refleks-M / Invar-M tandem, ~5 km). Coax 7.62 mm PKTM. Roof 12.7 mm Kord on a remote mount (UDP T05BV-1) so the commander does not open a hatch for air defence.
KALINA
Kalina is the digital fire-control loop: Sosna-U-class gunner sight (day / thermal / laser), commander panoramic thermal, hunter-killer (commander hands a target to the gunner), auto-track, dual-axis stabilization, digital ballistic computer, GLONASS/GPS. Four cameras for near-360° close-in view show up in Russian briefings (~95° each). First-round hit on the move is the sales sentence. It is a real generation up from early T-90A sights. It is not a 2020s Western APS-plus-network tank by default.
ENGINE AND MOTION
V-92S2F (sometimes F2 in later notes): ChTZ V-12 multifuel diesel, 38.9 L, 1,130 hp (831 kW), ~4,520 N·m. Stronger pumps, injectors, rods, cases, nitrided crank, better cleaner. Cold-start talk −20 °C unaided, operating envelope −50 to +50 °C, altitude to 3,000 m. Power-to-weight ~22–23.5 hp/t at 48–51 t.
Road 60–70 km/h. Dirt ~45–50. Range ~550 km internal. Torsion bars. 7+1 gearbox; some automatic-shift language on late M. Still a diesel T-72 descendant, not a gas-turbine T-80.
PRODUCTION
UVZ is the plant. Open estimates for 2024 were on the order of ~240 new T-90M a year; 2025 similar in Western tallies. Russian Wikipedia’s 2026 operator line gives ~620 T-90M in Russian service — treat fleet counts as moving and political. Leaked UVZ planning (reported 2025) sketched T-90M2 serial from 2026 and a 2027–29 bulge of over a thousand M/M2 new-build, rebuild, and modernize mixed. Plans are not deliveries.
India’s huge T-90S/SK fleet is not T-90M. Algeria and others bought earlier marks. Captured examples have appeared on the other side of the 2022 war; that does not make Ukraine a production customer.
WHAT IT IS NOT
Not T-14 Armata. Not a 70-ton NATO MBT. Not universally Arena-fitted. Not a tank whose carousel-under-crew problem went away because some rounds moved to the bustle. Field losses and drone/top-attack pictures are public; this page is the factory description, not a battle-damage board.
STATUS
Front-line Russian production MBT in 2026. Relikt + Kalina + 1,130 hp is the package. M2/Ryvok-1 is the next stencil if the leak schedule is real. UVZ rate is the strategic fact: this is the tank Russia can actually build in hundreds, which is why it matters more than Armata slides.
IN ONE SENTENCE
The T-90M Proryv is Uralvagonzavod’s 48-ton, three-man, Relikt-and-Kalina development of the T-90 — 125 mm 2A46M-5, 1,130 hp V-92S2F — the tank Russia is actually welding in numbers while the T-14 remains a prototype class.