Firstly, Ukraine does not have ammunition for Canadian armored vehicles, which Ukrainian Armed Forces intend to purchase. Secondly, the supply of such weaponry would negatively affect Ukraine’s national weaponry production, as reported by “Apostrophe”.
All armored vehicles that Ukraine will receive from Canada will definitely adhere to NATO standards, which may pose a serious problem to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“These armored vehicles have NATO armament. Those armored personnel carriers that are in service of the Canadian army have 25-mm cannons and ammunition of 7.62 NATO standards, which we do not have. If we are talking about supplying 200-400 units, it is quite possible that the Canadian BTRs will be re-armed with our combat modules that have already been worked out and installed on the BTR-3 and BTR-4. But we need armored personnel carriers, at least until mass production of the BTR-3 and BTR-4 has been launched,” military expert Mykhailo Zhyrokhov explained to “Apostrophe”.
At the same time, director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies Valentyn Badrak named another nuance. According to him, the industrial community in Ukraine would negatively react to Canadian supplies.
“It is one thing if we talk about expanding Canada’s military help to Ukraine, among which are modern types of armored technology. It is different, however, if we talk about Ukraine purchasing Canadian armored vehicles or tanks because the industrial community of Ukraine would perceive it negatively. We have a fairly solid tank school founded by Mykhailo Borysiuk in early 2000s. Our export is even stronger than Russian one, and Russia has decades of tank-building traditions. In addition, we have developed a dozen of light armored vehicles and some of them have already been adopted, such as Kozak and Bars. Thus, if Ukraine goes for direct purchases of such equipment, it would negatively affect the capabilities and potential of the country’s domestic defense industry," the expert believes.