The new Ukrainian armored personnel carrier is defective, reported Chief of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko.
He said that from the received as part of defense contracts in the past and this year the armed forces of 20 units of BTR-3 and 25 – BTR-4 on the course there are only 18 pieces.
In 2013 media reported about the problems with the delivery of a batch of 40 Ukrainian-made BTR-4 armored personnel carriers handed over to the Iraqi customer in February, because of alleged cracks in the vehicles’ hulls.
The BTR-3 is an 8×8-wheeled armored personnel carrier was designed by Adcom Manufacturing from UAE in 2000/2001 and manufactured by KMDB in Ukraine. The most significant of exports was to the Myanmar Army which acquired 1,000 BTR-3Us, to be assembled in Myanmar. The BTR-3U is not an upgrade of the BTR-80 and is a new vehicle similar to the Soviet design.
The BTR-4 “Bucephalus” is a 8×8 wheeled armoured personnel carrier (APC) designed in Ukraine by the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau (SOE KMDB) as a private venture. The Iraqi Ministry of Defence ordered 420 vehicles in 2012. Only 88 out of an order for 420 were delivered by late 2013 and the contract has been canceled due to numerous quality violations.
