[Marcello]

"Vehicles were dumped outside in the open and left without maintenance to fester with the snow piling up in winter etc - only a few were actually fired up and used for training or some obsolete vehicles were actually used instead of the actual unit kit for training, so if the baloon actually went up then the conscript crews would have little clue about thier t-72s as they had trained on say T-54."

I don't know about that. What I have heard (second hand accounts from a tanker in the 3rd Shock Army, mid 80's) is that they trained frequently and on their T-64s.By then they were falling behind the west, and they suspected as much despite what the zampolit told them about western weakness. But the stories about tanks left to rot sound like Cold war era propaganda BS.Maybe some old junk in some Category C unit or some local screwup. I have seen pictures of T-62s with their own garage even when the type was already well obsolete.
As noted previously during the 80's the soviets tried to upgrade their 2.5 generation tanks to keep up with 3rd generation western MBTs that were coming online. As I understand things later got worse. By the time the Gulf war came around against M1A1 HA with M829A1 rounds the soviets could field only limited numbers of T-80U/UD with BM-32 rounds.The T-80s lacked thermal sights, Kontakt-5 coverage had lots of gaps and the BM-32 was nothing to write home about.The frontline tank fleet was mostly made of earlier models with light ERA at that point.