Slovakia has decided to buy a further 30 AMV armored personnel carriers. These are to be made in Poland, following a Slovakian-Polish cooperation argreement.
Slovakia plans to buy 30 armored personnel carriers (APC) from Poland
over the next three years in a deal worth about $32 million, Polish
Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said on Friday.
Under the agreement, Slovak
firms will jointly develop the vehicles with Poland, and provide
turrets for the APCs, Kopacz said at a joint news conference with Slovak
counterpart Robert Fico.
The vehicles will be an updated version of
the Rosomak APC, manufactured in southern Poland under a license
agreement with Finnish firm Patria. Kopacz said she hoped the model
could be exported globally.
A European Union embargo on arms
imports from Russia has pushed Slovakia, among other EU states, to
accelerate its transition from Russian-made military hardware to
NATO-standard weaponry.
Source: Reuters
Author's opinion: The modernization of the East-European armies has been delayed by politics and budgetary problems for far too long. Only the Ukraine crisis has risen the awareness for the harsh truth about modern international politics.
Seeing Slovakia buy more Patria AMVs is a good thing, but it's only possible, because the troubles started in the Ukraine. What would have happened, if a EU or a NATO country would have been the target of Russia's aggressive expansion policy?
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