Soviet BTR-70 and BTR-80 are still the main wheeled means of delivery of personnel of the Armed forces of Ukraine. The country's military department posted on its Facebook page a picture with the main types of armored personnel carriers in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
In total, four models are described, the most perfect of which is the BTR-4 "Bucephalus". It is fully developed in the Kharkiv Engineering Design Bureau. However, many foreign military experts noticed in this sample a strong influence of the German Fuchs TPz.1, the French VAB and the Chinese WZ-551 (Type 92). However, if the foreign models are three-axle, then the Ukrainian received another additional pair of wheels.
The entire serial production of the "fourth" was accompanied by numerous scandals due to poor build quality, cracked armor and an insufficiently perfect module with weapons. As a result, Iraq, which purchased a large batch, was forced to send back some of the copies that arrived, and those that originally got into the troops are now in storage and are practically not used.
Literally several pieces were purchased by the armed forces of Nigeria and Indonesia, after which they lost interest in these machines. One unit was sent to the USA for study.
In the Ukrainian army itself, there are now only seventeen BTR-4, another fifty are listed in the National Guard. Additional shipments were reported, but, as always, this is due to a large number of financial and technical problems.
The BTR-3, whatever its creators claim, is, in fact, a modernization of the BTR-80. At least some of them were converted directly from the buildings of the "eighties". They were more successful than the "four" went abroad, for example, to Thailand, where there are more than two hundred of them.
Ukraine got only 175 "triples", and most of them again entered the National Guard.
At the same time, the ground forces still have more than 100 BTR-80, 122 are operated in amphibious assault units, several dozen more serve in the Marine Corps, National Guard and other law enforcement agencies.
Also, at least 230 BTR-70 and an unspecified number of long-obsolete BTR-60 remain in service, which for some reason the Ukrainian military department was ashamed to mention.
Alexey Brusilov
