The Ukrainian Armed Forces has finished creating a new reserve tank brigade as part of the army’s reserve troops corps, the country’s Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said on Jan. 28 during his visit to arms factories in the city of Kharkiv some 400 kilometers east of Kyiv.
Poltorak said the newly created forces were trained and ready to go into action to help repel a possible open invasion by Russia.
“This is prepared hardware and fueled vehicles submitted to their crews,” Poltorak said.
“And in case of escalation or an overt aggression, the reserve corps will be ready to step into action as soon as practicable.”
The Ukrainian armed forces did not say how many tanks were included in the new brigade. In many countries’ armed forces, a tank brigade has anything from 80 to 120 tanks or more.
According to the Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian armed forces currently have approximately 250,000 active duty troops, and more than 158,000 trained reserve personnel from civilian life aged up to 50 years and attached to specific military units.
They are occasionally summoned for drills in accordance with their army trades, and are normally meant to be ready to take command of their forces at first call.
Poltorak also added that Ukraine’s program of rearmament and amplification of its military power was greatly boosted by the recovery of the country’s defense production, particularly in terms of repair and modernization of armored vehicles.
“We can’t compare a tank of 2014 and a modernized tank of 2019,” he said.
“Even the materials of 2014 are beyond any comparison, and I remember the problems we used to have back then very well, for instance, with armored personnel carriers… The difference is very big.”
Over the past few years, he added, the Ministry of Defense has allocated over Hr 10 billion ($360 million) to the production, modernization, and overhaul of armored vehicles at Kharkiv productions, such as famous Malyshev Tank Factory or the Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau.
The whole Ukraine’s military production cluster successfully completed the 2018 defense procurement program, according to Poltorak, and the new procurement program for 2019 looked “very optimistic.”
“It envisages taking into operation at lest 20 types of weapons that have been been operated by Ukraine’s Armed Forces,” the minister said. “It is a good signal showing that we’re moving forward and not going to stop.”
He added that 2019 should see Ukraine’s defense production industry reach a new level, and start mass production of new hardware, instead of repairing old vehicles and weapons.
Earlier, UkrOboronProm, the Ukrainian state defense industry giant holding company of over 130 various enterprises producing military goods, reported that it had supplied over 1,000 armored vehicles to Ukraine’s Armed Forces in 2018.
