In late March 2023, the Romanian Ministry of Defense planned to buy 246 Western infantry fighting vehicles by 2031 to replace the MLI-84 and MLI-84M, a local copy of the Soviet BMP-1. For this, Bucharest is ready to spend 2.54 billion euros, including maintenance services and the supply of simulators.
After 2031, the Romanian Ministry of Defense plans to buy another 52 Western IFV’s to create an "operational and strategic stock", at this stage the cost of the purchase will be 450 million euros, as Defense Romania reports.
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It is noted that the purchase of Western infantry fighting vehicles will be included in the general program for the renewal of the Romanian Armed Forces worth 10 billion euros approximately until 2030. This program has yet to be approved by the Romanian Parliament, the document is still under discussion.
It is not yet known what procedure will be used to select the supplier of IFV’s for the Romanian army. But, as Defense Romania points out, there is already the first candidate for participation in the program: the ASCOD infantry fighting vehicle produced by General Dynamics.
Especially since this company brought the most advanced version ASCOD 42 IFV for demonstration at the Romexo 2022 exhibition in May of last year. The combat weight of it reaches 42 tons, protection reaches level 5 according to the STANAG 4569 standard and 4a/b according to mine protection standards, weapons can vary according to the modular principle.
The Military Balance 2022 indicates that in early 2022, the Romanian army had only 191 infantry fighting vehicles, of which 49 Piranha V wheeled IFV’s, 41 tracked IFV’s in the basic MLI-84 version and 101 upgraded MLI-84M Jderul. It also follows from this that the Ministry of Defense of Romania wants to increase the fleet of its IFV’s by 50% thanks to the purchase of Western armored vehicles.
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