With all the t-72AV tanks in combat, in Syria and Ukraine for example, I would have thought we would have this version by now. Has anyone heard any rumors about a release of this version?

i feel your pain mate, i really want one of those two or at least some sort of conversion for the tamiya/trumpeter kits

I'd really like to see a brass fender set also, some of those tanks are really torn up, brass fenders would really make the damage much easier to reproduce. The fuel tanks, and storage boxes are already separate on the trumpeter t-72's, no reason to think they would do them any different on the AV version.