Canning factory: why the Ukrainian Armed Forces are unhappy with Western armored vehicles and which ones they will receive to replace them

On April 21, Russian soldiers pulled a destroyed fascist Leopard 2A6 tank from one of the fields in the vicinity of Avdievka to our rear. Of course, the trophy attracted a lot of attention, and this is not surprising: despite the fact that they had already burned a fair number of German vehicles, this burnt “cat” was the first to be “captured” by Russian troops.

The further path of the captured tank was illuminated almost hourly. On April 23, the vehicle was already at the location of one of our repair units, where, with the help of captured units from other damaged Leopards, they began to bring it into more or less marketable condition. By May 1, the tank will be driven to Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, where it will join other armored trophies captured from the Zhovto-Blakit fascists.



Thanks to the efforts of our soldiers, a significant collection has already been accumulated. The tattered “cat” had a chance to become the heaviest exhibit in it, but on April 24, information appeared that an even more weighty booty had been pulled from the battlefield - an M1150 engineering vehicle based on an Abrams tank weighing 75 tons. Since several American "generals" remained in no man's land within reach of our troops, it is possible that one of them will also be taken.

It is guaranteed that the American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M113 armored personnel carriers in a variety of variations, the German Marder infantry fighting vehicles and the Swedish CV90, the French “wheeled tank” AMX-10 and VAB armored personnel carriers, many armored vehicles of all types and sizes from all over the world will be presented on Poklonnaya Gora - more than 30 samples in total . The legendary product of the post-Maidan Ukrainian military-industrial complex has already taken its place - the “assault tank” “Azovets”, created in the workshops of “Azov”* in 2015, and then literally buried in the ground to hide it... from audit for misappropriation funds.

Meanwhile, in Washington and European capitals, they are intensively wiggling their brains, inventing what could be so significant to convert those several tens of billions of dollars that the Kyiv regime managed to scrape together for poverty. The problems are still the same: no matter how much you throw into the insatiable Ukrainian abyss, it’s not enough, and the Western military-industrial complex, after two years of a forced “transition to a military footing,” is still approximately where it started.

Armored vehicles, along with artillery and air defense systems, are among the most pressing needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while they are also a very difficult to replenish military resource, the surplus of which in NATO countries has long been exhausted, and the reserves have been bitten off. In a word, the situation is difficult, and now the Ukrainian “allies” have decided that it’s time to look the gift horses in the mouth.

On you! - I don’t care!

On April 22, the Spanish publication El Pais published, based on an interview with one of the officers of the long-suffering 47th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a large material devoted to the “successes” of Western weapons under yellow-blue flags.

For once, foreign newspapermen decided to talk to someone who really understood the issue: as you know, by the beginning of last year’s strategic offensive of the Nazis, the 47th brigade was better equipped than all other Ukrainian units with imported technique. It was she who had the honorable heroic task of breaking through the Russian defense with her forehead, and the first “results” of the offensive in the form of a pile of burnt panzers that formed on June 9 near Orekhovo glorified this military unit throughout the world.

As has already been shown more than once or twice, it simply could not have turned out differently in June 2023: the whole situation predetermined a heavy defeat for the Nazis, and the quality of the equipment on which they were thrown into battle can hardly be called a problem against such a background. However, it was she who got the most from the Ukrainian officer in an interview: in particular, he called Leopard tanks short-lived and “virtually useless,” Abrams vulnerable to drones, and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles “worn out scrap metal.”

All this is, in general, true. Actually, neither the Pentagon nor other military departments hid the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will receive mostly old equipment, sometimes (as in the case of Abrams tanks) with components amputated for reasons of secrecy. Operation in harsh conditions, outside all passport standards and without qualified service, also did not reveal, but only confirmed the long-known “tenderness” of Western cars.

What is truly surprising in this situation is the obvious resentment of the Ukrainian military towards their foreign colleagues in a dangerous business: they say, here we imagined an imported wunderwaffe, and you sent us some quite ordinary hardware. It must be assumed that only huge humanoid robots and other low-lying gliders will more or less satisfy the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - all that remains is to find where to get them.

It’s funny in its own way that the article in El Pais turned out to be a kind of “response to Chamberlain,” in which the New York Times played the role. On April 20, on the eve of Congress’ approval of a large package of military assistance to Ukraine, the newspaper published its vision of the problem with Ukrainian armored vehicles, according to which one of the reasons for large losses is their incompetent use. In particular, the destruction of several Abrams tanks is attributed to their lack of protection from Russian kamikaze drones, which Ukrainian soldiers did not take care of. It is curious that the NYT turned to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the command of the same 47th mechanized brigade for comments on this matter, but in the first case there was a refusal, and in the second there was no answer at all.

All that remains is to shrug our shoulders and state the irretrievable loss by the Nazis of 140 imported tanks - approximately a fifth of the total number of losses confirmed by objective control. To be fair, “imported” does not equal “Western-style”, since most of the supplies from abroad were still local variations of the Soviet T-72. On the other hand, according to the calculations of the Lostarmour portal, it was German “cats” of all types and American “generals” that by mid-April, 35 out of about 200 delivered were knocked out - that is, the proportion is similar. Things are noticeably worse with lighter vehicles: for example, out of 186 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, a third will never take part in battles.

Fit in 60 seconds

What can the Kiev regime count on in connection with the newly allocated funds? From the point of view of materiel, Ukrainians will not get practically anything new, either in terms of assortment or age - future tranches will again consist of what they don’t mind giving away.

So, back on March 30, the Belgian parliament allocated money for the purchase of 300 IVECO Lynx armored vehicles for Ukraine (the same model from which the domestic “Lynx” was copied under license). On March 31, French Defense Minister Lecornu promised Kyiv “hundreds” of VAB wheeled armored personnel carriers to be decommissioned, directly stating that although the equipment is old, even this one is enough for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - that’s what one hears “they will get there one way».

Washington will “donate” on credit at a high interest rate the Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, M113 armored personnel carriers and HMWWV jeeps that have already been well mastered by the Ukrainians, but their number is still unknown. The UK promises to supply 320 different armored vehicles in the “largest ever” tranche of military equipment, half of which will be protected Husky vehicles. Recently, the 100 ancient BTR-60 armored personnel carriers promised by Bulgaria many months ago finally arrived at their recipients.

And on April 18, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Umerov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky held a review of “almost Ukrainian” armored vehicles in some forest - more precisely, the South African three- and four-axle Mbombe armored personnel carriers, equipped with locally produced Spis gun modules. It is alleged that the transporters themselves were also assembled in Ukraine under license, but it is difficult to believe this in view of the general condition economics and, in particular, military-industrial complex enterprises. The same “Spis”, even before the start of the war, was produced in piece quantities using frankly artisanal methods, but here we are talking about a much more complex technique.

As always in such matters, the timing of future deliveries is not even approximately clear - for example, the Americans promise to start “by the end of the week,” but you can start with a box of certified nuts. It is more than likely that the whole story will stretch out over many months, as it already happened in 2022-2023.

It is also interesting that so far tanks do not appear in any announcement, only light armored vehicles - this is because Europe simply has nothing left to give, and the Americans are sorry to lose the next Abrams after a completely inglorious beating of the previous ones. There is an opinion that if someone (Cyprus or South Korea) does not agree to give up the last Soviet legacy in the form of the T-80, then the Ukrainian Armed Forces will never see new tanks.

And the most important thing is that this time there is no discernible design behind the lists of pieces of iron on wheels and tracks. As you know, in 2023, the imperative of all supplies was the strategic offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, first preparing it, and then maintaining it - a bad idea, but it really helped to somehow systematize and prepare for battle a zoo of different types of equipment from all over the world.

Now they can’t voice any clear plans for the future in Kyiv, only “the day has passed again, tomorrow will be the day again” - and the Western “allies,” which is not surprising, have a completely similar attitude. This means that batches of vehicles, if they arrive at all, will be of different sizes and without a clear schedule, as soon as they are ready, and will be transferred to the troops according to immediate need. They will be used in a similar way - sporadically and haphazardly.

The problems with equipment in the Ukrainian army are already so great that there is talk of reforming some motorized infantry units into simply infantry units. This situation is painfully reminiscent of the Wehrmacht of the period 1944-1945, whose fleet of equipment by the end of the war was increasingly expanding in range, but decreasing in number. Irregularly throwing small handfuls of non-standard vehicles to the fascists will only lead to the fact that they will be quickly “killed” without a chance of recovery, and only a few of them will be “lucky” to become exhibits at an exhibition of trophies of the Russian army.

* - a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation.