Having suffered serious losses in military equipment, Ukrainian formations are forced to use crude armored vehicles that have not passed full-fledged tests.
For example, in Kharkiv, during one of the armed provocations, a Kevlar-E infantry fighting vehicle was seen, which is, in fact, a mock-up model made for demonstrations at various weapons exhibitions.
The first data about this miracle of engineering appeared back in 2017, when the developers presented a project based on a redesigned MT-LB.
Kiev officials in uniform planned to resume production of such Soviet tracked tractors in this city. Of course, the matter has not progressed beyond boastful statements.
In the early version, it was supposed to increase the height of the landing compartment, strengthen resistance to various ammunition due to a lightweight version of the "reactive armor" "Knife" or active protection "Zaslon-L" ("Hornet"). The latter was created specifically for BMP, BRM and armored personnel carriers. However, both failed to be brought to mind.
As weapons, it was planned to use combat modules previously tested on the BTR-3 and BTR-4, with 30-mm rapid-firing guns - clones of Russian 2A72, 7.62-mm machine guns, 30-mm automatic grenade launchers and anti-tank guided missiles with laser guidance. The crew is three people, the landing party is six motorized infantry.
The mobility of the machine, which had become heavier up to 16,000 kg, was to be preserved due to the purchase of German or American diesel engines abroad.
Despite the advertising, this BMP did not interest the military departments. Then the Soviet 122-mm self-propelled artillery 2S1 "Carnation", which had already been manufactured at the Kharkov Tractor Plant (KhTZ) until 1991, was adapted as a base. This modification was called "Kevlar-E".
The chassis of the self-propelled gun that lost its turret was modified as expected on the Motoliga. This sample was brought to the exhibition in Kiev, but again, it did not receive much attention, and perhaps it would have been completely forgotten if not for this recent outing.
Alexey Moiseev
