"...until one does some research and discovers that Russia has 9,750 more."

I guess there's research and then there's research. Yes, Russia has those tanks... with thousands of them being 50-year-old T-72s and with the vast majority of those in mothballs and whose maintenance and reliability is... well... let's just call it "questionable".

10,000 tanks is an amazing amount of force... if they run and if they can actually be manned and fielded. (You may have noticed that Russia hasn't exactly shined on the logistics front either.) If not, all you basically have is a bunch of metal boxes rusting away in a lot of scattered warehouses.

The $250,000 number sounds ugly too... spending that much money is going to be expensive! Well, yes... except for the minor fact that we've already built and purchased somewhere around 45,000 of the silly things. IOW, we've already spent that money.

But hey, since both of those numbers fit the narrative you're pushing, why not take your research and run with it...