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Speaking to the National Iraqi News Agency (NINA) on Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Walid Khalifa, the commander of the army’s 9th armored division, said the fourth batch of the Russian T-90 battle tanks arrived safely in Iraq and was delivered to the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

He added that army troops have been prepared to operate the tanks after they received training at the hands of Russian experts.

In July 2017, Iraq signed a deal with Russia on the delivery of a “large batch” of modernized T-90 main battle tanks worth one billion dollars.

The T-90 is the newest export version of the T-90AM tank which uses the same types of ammunition as the T-90. The ammunition includes fragmentation shells with a remote blasting which makes it possible to effectively destroy enemy personnel.

Speaking to Sputnik, Russian military expert Viktor Murakhovsky recalled that “the conditions of Iraq and Syria are desert and semi-desert areas and a long range of open spaces.”

“The T-90 is already successfully using guided missiles launched through the barrel; in this regard, a high-precision missile with a range of up to five kilometers can be described as a sort of [the T-90’s] ‘high-precision hand’,” Murakhovsky said.

“At present there are no targets on the battlefield that the Russian tanks [T-90] could not destroy. If the target is found, it will be obliterated,” Murakhovsky added, referring to an enemy tank, vehicles used by terrorists and firing points.