The Russians have been working for years to provide cheap and effective, simple to use arms to the "People" of the world while maintaining the ability to counter these weapons themselves. Unable to spend like the west for the better part of it's existence the USSR was content to arm the folks who had the nerve to stand against the American Corpratist Empire. Iran is armed to the teeth with guided missiles that cost 1/10th the price of an F-16 and can still penetrate the defenses of a Carrier group. Apparently russian anti-armor weapons have advanced as well.
Russian arms appear to have played a crucial role in the strong resistance Hezbollah put up to the Israeli military in Lebanon.
Israel lost dozens of tanks, several helicopters and 116 men during its month-long push into southern Lebanon, the heaviest losses it suffered in any of the previous wars against Arabs. This gave Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reason to claim that his men had achieved "a strategic, historic victory" over "a confused, cowardly and defeated" enemy.
Israeli officials blamed the losses on Russian anti-tank grenades and missiles that had been allegedly supplied to Hizbollah by Syria and Iran.
http://www.today.az/news/politics/29225.html
Soviets were actively (and successfully) using and protecting their tanks in USSR-Afghanistan war.
Afghani Mujahideen were also armed with guided ATGMs, and regularly set convoy ambushes on the mount passes.
While basic configuration T-72s were vulnerable to such attacks, further M1/M2 modifications with extended ERA and worlds first active Drozd system proved incredibly successful in countering guided ATGM fire.
In fact, even after taking multiple hits, modified T-72s were able to return fire and suppress enemy positions.
While Drozd was able to provide protection only to forward hemisphere, its further development the