Apparently, one of the Armatas broke down during the Parade, and one of the Buk missile launchers caught fire.<p>Admittedly, the Tank looks usable, but the question of the value of a completely new MBT is a really urgent one. Especially as the worth of armor diminishes more and more, as it already did once in the 60s. Modern ATGM are capable of smashing every modern MBT at the first hit, and the only protection are active protection systems as fitted to modern Israeli Merkavas. As long as the russians don't equip this Tank with one of those, its as big a casket as an old T-54.
For those interested, Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising presents a pretty accurate account of a major modern day tank battle/ground war between two advanced armies. It's also a great Cold War era novel. Basically, short-range (1-4 km) anti-tank guided missiles wreak havoc on tanks and neutralize any advancing armor columns. Attack helicopters also are important but their effectiveness ends up being severely limited by Man-portable air-defense systems (think Stinger Missiles). Air superiority, for both sides at first, is limited by over the horizon radar and mobile SAM units, and so it ends up being too risky to use air assets to attack ground forces.<p>As for how it would turn out today, I think about the same. Point defense systems to intercept ATGMs are still relatively new and have only been tested in the field by Israel against Hamas during their 2014 war. They were supposedly very successful with intercepting RPGs and Metis-Ms (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K115-2_Metis-M" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K115-2_Metis-M</a>). I'm unconvinced drones like the Predator or Reaper would be effective in an extended conflict. The real power of drones lies in their ability to loiter in area for an incredibly long amount of time and wait for a target to present itself. In a modern battlefield where the sky is constantly being illuminated by radar, a loitering craft in the area of battle is not going to be there for long.
Russia is ready to win the next WWII. It is just so happens that WWII is already in the past, and the next wars will be won by drones and other high-tech weapon systems which Russia isn't capable to produce. The drones they flt in Ukraine war are foreign (bought from Israel).