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Rearming the Army: Ukrainians Bought a Hundred APCs for the Military Protecting the Country

Armored vehicles procured by Prytula in Great Britain / Photo credit: Prytula Foundation
Armored vehicles procured by Prytula in Great Britain / Photo credit: Prytula Foundation

In their effort to find combat vehicles, they found even some interesting rarities from the British Army

Ukrainian-russian war has already shown us multiple times that the prerogative of procuring weapons of warfare is not entirely exclusive to the state and military companies. Volunteers from Ukraine and Poland, Lithuania and the United States joined efforts to buy equipment for the Ukrainian army: from guns to satellites.

This time though, we decided to take note of a procurement of a hundred and one armored personnel carriers done by the Prytula Foundation. Thanks to the detailed report published by this organization the other day we can find out the price and nomenclature of the items, and there are some really interesting ones among them.

Read more: How Much a Thousand Machine Guns Cost: Ukrainian Volunteers Purchased 1,460 PKMs from Bulgarian Company

As follows from the paper, all the vehicles are of British manufacture (prices in GBP):

CRV(T) family:

  • 40 FV103 Spartan (personnel carrier) – total cost £2,138,000 (price per unit: £41,000 – £60,000)
  • 21 FV105 Sultan (command vehicle) – total cost £1,079,000 (price per unit: £41,000 – £60,000)
  • 3 FV106 Samson (recovery vehicle) – total cost £158,800 (price per unit: £50,000 – £58,800)
  • 2 FV104 Samaritan (armored ambulance) – total cost £106,800 (price per unit: £48,000 – £58,800)

Stormer family:

  • 8 Stormer (anti-aircraft system carrier) – total cost £356,000 (price per unit: £41,000 – £54,000)
  • 1 Shielder (high mobility load carrier) – cost £46,000.

FV430 family:

  • 24 FV 432 (armored personnel carrier) – total cost £1,291,000 (price per unit: £30,000 – £58,000)
  • 2 FV 434 (repair and evacuation crane vehicle) – total cost £100,000 (price per unit: £44,000 and £56,000)
Sultan command vehicle
Sultan command vehicle. This one is photographed while newly arrived, the livery may be changed so it doesn't stand out / Photo credit: Prytula Foundation

Credits to Serhii Prytula, the founder of the foundation, for breaking down the prices. On a request by Defense Express, he explained the fluctuations in prices by the fact that each of the five different companies he had negotiated all quoted their own price. The factors that determined the cost were: the operational condition of the vehicle, its mileage, and the time needed to prepare it for the transfer.

Notably, he outlines the "hype around the CRV(T) family." Here we should remind you that a number of Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) were provided by the British government to Ukraine, reportedly, 40 vehicles of this series. In 2022, Ukrainian volunteers "surged the market," as he mentioned in an interview to Ukrainska Pravda, and the prices increased by 25-35%.

FV434 has a crane to facilitate evacuation of damaged equipment from the zone of active hostilities
FV434 has a crane to facilitate evacuation of damaged equipment from the zone of active hostilities / Photo credit: Prytula Foundation

We divided the procured vehicles into these three categories according to the classification of the UK Ministry of Defense although basically, the Stormer series is not significantly different from the CRV(T) because it is based on the same chassis FV101 Scorpion. However, it is considered in conjunction with the weapon it carries, the mounted Starstreak system, thus denoted as a combat vehicle.

But in our case, the vehicles were bought without weapons:

"The military are installing the armament themselves," Prytula says. "We are not involved in this process." He also suggests that maybe some of the vehicles are used not as they are intended. Which brings us to an interesting topic, the Shielder vehicle.

In some sources, this vehicle is referred to as a "flat-bed Stormer," its primary role is to carry anti-tank mines dispersed by the Volcano systems. According to the annual report published by the UK Ministry of Defense in 2014, the British Army decided that "the Shielder Anti-Tank mine canisters and associated vehicles were no longer required." The vehicles were decommissioned, and the fate of the mine dispensers designated in the British military as M163 Volcano is unknown.

M139 Volcano
In the US, the mine-laying system is known as the M139 Volcano / Photo credit: DVIDS

Currently, only the United States and South Korea use Volcano systems, but neither of them officially supplied them to Ukraine. Most likely, this rare vehicle will be one of those used for another purpose. Without the mine launchers, the vehicle will look something like this:

Illustrative image: this Shielder vehicle without a Volcano launcher was sold at an auction
Illustrative image: this Shielder vehicle without a Volcano launcher was sold at an auction / Photo credit: Sanderson Weatherall

Lastly, the FV430 series that is denoted as a combat vehicle in the British military. The UK itself only agreed to supply a hundred of them to Ukraine in January 2023, although it is basically an analog of the American M113 which had been given to Ukraine before. The reason for the hesitation we explained earlier.

Compared to the Spartan of the CRV(T) family, the FV432 carrier has better armor that can be enhanced with ERA elements, has a weight of 15 tons compared to the 10.6-ton reconnaissance vehicle, and can take a team of 10 soldiers + 2 crew personnel aboard, whilst Spartan has a place for only 4 soldiers and the crew of 3.

FV103 Spartan, FV105 Sultan, and FV432 side by side
FV103 Spartan, FV105 Sultan, and FV432 side by side / Photo credit: Prytula Foundation, cropped by Defense Express

Ukrainska Pravda summed up that Ukrainian volunteers, including the Prytula Foundation, also the fund by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and The Ukrainian World Congress organization, have bought a combined 155 armored vehicles in Great Britain of these types.

Read more: ​Characteristics of the FV103 Spartan "Tankettes", and in How They Can Help Ukrainian Army