MOSCOW (Reuters) - About 100 modern Russian tanks have been discovered abandoned on the side of a road in the country’s Ural mountains, footage published on Saturday by websites showed.

Video clips from the E1.ru website that were rebroadcast on Russian television showed local people clambering over some of the unguarded T-80 tanks that were parked in long rows in Kamishlovsk, about 100 km from the Ural city of Yekaterinburg.

Russian military prosecutors are probing how the tanks, Russia’s main battle tank, came to be left in such a situation, state news agency RIA reported.

Russia is currently streamlining its massive military, with some commanders recently quoted in the Russian media as saying they only require half of the country’s 20,000 tanks.