Outmoded tanks and armored vehicles will be scrapped in a "massive" scheme launched by the defense ministry last year, a senior military official said on Friday, March 23.

"From 2011 onward, in accordance with a government decree the Defense Ministry has begun taking outdated automobiles and armored vehicles out of service and getting rid of them," Major General Alexander Shevchenko told journalists in Moscow.

The scheme involves T-80, T-64, T-55, tanks as well as a number of army trucks.

Shevchenko did not disclose the exact number of vehicles to be destroyed, but the Soviet Union produced thousands of these types of tanks from the 1950's to the 1990's and stored many of them.

The ministry could not be reached for comment, RIA Novosti reported.