Germany has disrupted the start of deliveries of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armoured vehicles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces due to problems with spare parts for the vehicles, which are manufactured in the United States.
This is reported by the edition Bild with reference to the relevant documents.
According to the publication, Berlin was to supply Kiev with up to 400 heavy wheeled MRAP armoured vehicles. The relevant contract was signed between the Ukrainian authorities and the German defence company Flensburger Fahrzeugbau GmbH (FFG) under financing from the German budget for a total of €315m.
The publication, citing a document of the German Defence Ministry, writes that these armoured vehicles are to be delivered to the AFU in batches of 20 from January to October this year. However, no deliveries have started so far.
The publication says that the plan for 2024 was reduced first to 200 and then to 100 vehicles. The start of deliveries was postponed from January to May-June.
According to the publication, this was due to the fact that FFG receives spare parts for armoured vehicles from the US. The company had “licence restrictions on exports from the US to Germany”, as well as problems with mine protection certification.
