Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Warsaw Pact and NATO-standard armored transports, infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, and mobile artillery systems over the past two years, expecting to use them to make a successful breakthrough against Russian forces during last year’s disastrous counteroffensive.
Troops from Russia's Battlegroup Tsentr have shown off NATO-made armored vehicles captured intact during the special military operation in Ukraine, revealing to a Sputnik correspondent why the vehicles have proven unsuitable for local battlefield conditions. “This vehicle has problems with its heater; it’s not designed for our climate, there’s essentially no heater,” an automotive platoon commander, call sign "Chebarkul," told Sputnik while driving a trophy Kirpi – a Turkish-made mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle delivered to Kiev in large numbers in 2022.
Russian forces managed to get ahold of one of these vehicles fully intact and in full working order during Ukrainian forces’ chaotic retreat from the fortified Donetsk suburb of Avdeyevka last month. Ukraine was sent about 200 BMC Kirpi (lit. "Hedgehog") MRAPs last year, with the vehicles operated by Ukraine’s ground forces and Marines.
Independent OSINT analysts estimated last October that over a quarter of the 20-ton vehicles had been destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured by Russian forces. Along with Turkiye and Ukraine, the vehicles, which have a complement of up to 13 passengers and an operational range of up to 1,000 km, have been bought by or donated to Djibouti, the Serbian breakaway of Kosovo, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and the UAE
Russian forces managed to get ahold of one of these vehicles fully intact and in full working order during Ukrainian forces’ chaotic retreat from the fortified Donetsk suburb of Avdeyevka last month.
Ukraine was sent about 200 BMC Kirpi (lit. "Hedgehog") MRAPs last year, with the vehicles operated by Ukraine’s ground forces and Marines. Independent OSINT analysts estimated last October that over a quarter of the 20-ton vehicles had been destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured by Russian forces. Along with Turkiye and Ukraine, the vehicles, which have a complement of up to 13 passengers and an operational range of up to 1,000 km, have been bought by or donated to Djibouti, the Serbian breakaway of Kosovo, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and the UAE.
Another trophy NATO vehicle shown off by Russian troops is the Pinzgauer 718, a BAE Systems Land and Armaments-manufactured all-terrain 6x6 vehicle.
“This vehicle, judging by the tactical markings applied to it, was used by medical staff to evacuate the wounded. Its front axle was destroyed,” a trooper going by the call sign "Kazan," the deputy commander for weapons of a separate repair and evacuation regiment from Battlegroup Tsentr siad.
“During the Ukrainian retreat from Avdeyevka, while our forces stormed the city, the vehicle was abandoned. I think that in this area, in the current muddy conditions, the use of this vehicle makes no sense, given its poor cross-country ability due to the wheelbase and low ground clearance,” the soldier said.
Ukraine has received at least 11 Pinzgauer vehicles of various configurations, three of them ambulances, and eight in their armored personnel carrier role, since mid-2022. The vehicles have an operational range of about 400 km, a 2.5-ton payload capacity, and the ability to transport between 8 and 12 passengers. The vehicles were developed by Austrian-based manufacturing conglomerate Steyr-Daimler-Puch in the early 1970s, with Britain’s BAE producing them between 2000 and 2007.
Shattering NATO Myths
The battlefields of Ukraine have effectively shattered the reputation of invincibility that NATO equipment earned for itself in battles against smaller conventional adversaries through the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, with Russian forces destroying thousands of Western military vehicles ranging from Bradley IFVs to Abrams, Challenger 2, and Leopard 2 main battle tanks over the past eight months.
Western defense observers recognized the limitations of their military hardware in Ukraine, urging Kiev to speed up the pace of its disastrous counteroffensive before getting stuck in the mud and winter weather, and pointing out that individual weapons systems, including Ukraine’s complement on Abrams tanks – requires “rigorous maintenance” to keep their engines operational in dusty rural conditions over long periods.
As far back as August of 2023, experts began coming out of the woodwork to suggest that Kiev stick to its Soviet-era military equipment for attacks against entrenched Russian positions, at least in part due to the maneuverability characteristics of the old equipment in bad weather and difficult terrain.
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