Ukraine To Deliver 26 Armored Vehicles To Iraq

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine on Wednesday announced that it began the delivery of 26 armored vehicles for the Iraqi armed forces.


The state-owned Malyshev Plant SE, based in Kharkiv, east of Ukraine, will deliver the 26 armored personnel carriers (BTR-4) as part of the 2009 agreement signed between the two countries.

The BTR-4 armored vehicles were designed by Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau. The personal carriers were built at the Malyshev Plant, according to its Director General Volodymyr Mazin.

The Malyshev Plant will now begin work on the second batch of armored personnel carriers. However, there has not been set a date for the delivery of the next 62 vehicles.

In 2009, Iraq and Ukraine signed an agreement for the purchase of 420 BTR-4 armored vehicles. The last set of armored carriers will be delivered in March 2012.

The contract was worth $2.4 billion and also includes 32 aircraft and repairs.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced that its military adopted a indigenous anti-tank missile system capable of destroying low-altitude, slow-moving aerial targets, the first of ten ordered.

The Stugna-P system was developed by Luch Design Bureau, which is based in Kiev, and implemented features of foreign models of the same class.

The laser-guided system has a range of 4 kilometers and is capable of destroying armored vehicles, small fortifications and even helicopters flying at low altitude.