OREANDA-NEWS. The American military media We Are The Mighty, citing data from the Global Firepower website, reported that Russian army owns the world’s largest fleet of armored fighting vehicles.

According to the publication, the number of Russian tanks is comparable to the total number of tanks of the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Russians have about 22 thousand tanks. At the same time, the European countries of NATO have 11 thousand tanks. Most of them are at the disposal of Turkish army which has 3.2 thousand.

It is also noted that the total number of NATO tank troops together with the United States and Canada reaches 18 thousand.

“So, yeah, Russia’s massive armored forces could cause legitimate heartburn in the rest of Europe. No one wants to be the next Ukraine or the next Georgia. (Russia successfully annexed a portion of Georgia in a 2008 invasion,)” the publication says.

In the spring of 2019, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko announced a stoppage in military and civilian cooperation with NATO. The diplomat also expressed hope that there would be no war conflict between Russia and the alliance.

In the middle of September 2019, Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, announced the loss of NATO’s superiority over Russia. He noted that the leaders of the defense departments recognized this and in May approved a new NATO strategy. According to American official, the strategy determines the plans of the North Atlantic alliance and the position of forces presented by various countries of the military block.