I knew a little about the tank from
The Beast because at the time I saw it, I was a full on tank-head and recognized that it wasn't proper Soviet issue and thus I wanted to know just what it was.
Loved the movie, got a copy as soon as I could (back when it was still called
The Beast Of War) and tried to convince all my friends to watch it.
In regards to
Company 9, yeah I second Anna's recommendation, definitely worth watching. Another movie of the Soviet military that dates from the days of the Soviet Union is
In The Zone Of Special Interest AKA
In The Zone Of Special Attention although it might be easier to find it under it's Russian title V Zone Osobogo Vnimaniya or if you want the Cyrilic: - В Зоне Особого Внимания
While it's praised by many former Soviet soldiers, it's a little light on realism in some places but despite that, the actors portray the qualities admired as being "desantniki" and it became something of a cult movie for many Soviet soldiers.
There's a version available on
YouTube but without any translation though it's still worth watching just for the Soviet equipment, locations etc. etc.
There is also a similar though later movie that can be seen with some subtitles on
YouTube although they're really, really dodgy (auto-translate for the fail). The movie is called
Countermove but also sometimes called
In The Zone Of Special Attention. Countermove.
Really worth seeing if you can get past the music because there are many scenes of Soviet equipment including about six minutes in, a brief set of scenes of and on the Moskva Class helo carrier Leningrad.