Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said that the Russian military-industrial complex will produce 1,500 modern battle tanks in 2023, he was quoted by Interfax:
“Our enemies believed that our industry would choke, that is, we would spend everything – these are their endless conversations: “shells have run out, tanks have run out, missiles have run out,” and so on. We will make 1,500 tanks alone this year.”
Military expert Pavel Luzin commented to The Insider whether it is possible to realize the plans of the deputy head of the Security Council:
“It's absolutely impossible. Russia modernizes 150-180 previously produced T-72, T-80 and T-90 tanks a year, and the net production of new T-90 tanks is 20-30 units. The USSR did not produce so many tanks per year, why focus on the words of a deeply ill person? It is impossible to produce 1500 tanks a year, this is nonsense.”
Medvedev is known for his statements, which are often far from politics and subsequently become memes and are quoted by the media. For example, in 2016, he uttered the phrase “There is no money, but you hold on” to pensioners in the annexed Crimea. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dmitry Medvedev began to post his thoughts on social networks, including on the Telegram channel, where he has more than a million subscribers. So, he has already managed to promise to avenge the blocking of the YouTube channel of Dmitry Puchkov (“Goblin”), to call for the overthrow of the current US President Joe Biden “at the request of Colonel Trump.” Medvedev also stated that before the accession of Georgia to the Russian Empire, the first "did not exist at all", and Kazakhstan is an artificial state, and promised to correct the "fatal mistake" of the 90s.