This is good news.

Off the top of my head, doesn't Peru also operate Su-25s?

I wonder if they might want to get Su-25SM upgrades too?

Especially now that the Russian Air Force is upgrading all its Su-25s, they might get a good price for the work.

Not sure how much money they have to spend, but I would suspect that a purchase of upgraded T-72s might be more cost effective, and less likely to provoke an arms race in response.

An upgraded T-72 has a large fraction of the capabilities of a T-90... not for a second suggesting the T-90 is bad or anything, but the latest model is the T-90MS which is 4 million a vehicle... compared with the T-55... which probably cost $500,000.

Perhaps they might want to either give their T-55s some radial upgrades, or perhaps even look at the surplus market as the Russian military will have a lot of vehicles they no longer need.

I really don't know enough about conditions in Peru, like climate and terrain... perhaps vehicles like BMP-3 and lighter tanks like Sprut might be more suitable.

Do you know what they might be interested in, or actually looking at?

I suspect upgraded T-72s would probably be the most cost effective choice... T-80s are no longer in production so you would need to get them second hand.

Russia has about 2,000 in service and is keeping them till they wear out rather than just scrapping them because they are sophisticated tanks very comparable to early model T-90s.

The problem is that a few of them are T-80Us which means they have powerful, but gas guzzling gas turbine engines.

I would think that 140 late model T-72s given an upgrade with french designed by Russian made thermals and comms etc would be a very capable tank without costing too much or triggering a local arms race.

The BMP-3 would make an excellent light tank that is fully amphibious and with thermals in the late model versions are very capable.

Mig-29M2s would be very suitable to a country that already operates Mig-29s... are the SMTs?

A small purchase of Mig-29M2s and an upgrade of the existing aircraft to SMT standard to maximise commonality would be a useful investment.

Pechora can be upgraded substantially without costing too much, though BUK is a very capable system.

A few Pantsir-S1 batteries would also be useful to ensure the larger SAMs remain operational if attacked.

Peru wanted the T-90 from the start, but price was the issue.

Interesting.

I would suspect if price was an issue then they are looking at T-90S tanks rather than T-90SM.

The T-90S tanks are about 2.2 million each AFAIK compared with 4 million for the T-90SM.

Of course it might be the T-90SM that swayed them that the extra money was worth it.

Either vehicle would be a huge step up from the T-55.

I am not sure that they are getting T-90 in any form. They wanted T-90S a few years back, so I don't think MS is even part of the equation.

Let's wait for something firm.