Russia will display its latest military trophies, Ukrainian NATO-provided military hardware, at the Army-2023 international military-technical forum, which is due to open in the Moscow Region’s Kubinka later on Monday, a well-informed source has told Sputnik.
The source said that the equipment would include "several pieces of Western armored vehicles, including infantry fighting vehicles, which were captured by Russian servicemen” during Moscow’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.
The Russian military captured several samples of equipment in the special operation zone, including German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks, US Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, France’s AMX-10RC light tank and the Swedish-made SV-90 armored infantry carrier.
The remarks come after a separate source told Sputnik that the captured Western equipment had been explored by a wide pool of specialists from various companies of the Russian military-industrial complex.
“In particular, the tests have showed that Western military hardware has an acceptable level of armor protection, but on the other hand, this equipment has extremely mediocre mobility and maneuverability, especially when moving on bad roads,” the source pointed out. Another weak point of Western military equipment, the insider added, is “a very complicated design, something that is related to this hardware’s reparability and maintenance.”
The Western equipment was seized amid Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, which was launched by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on June 4.
Russian President Vladimir Putin underscored late last month that "the enemy was not successful in all directions of firefight.” According to him, “All counteroffensive attempts have been stopped, and the enemy has been pushed back with heavy losses."
The US and its NATO allies increased their supplies of military equipment to Kiev shortly after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly warned countries sending weapons to Ukraine that the Kremlin sees these military shipments as legitimate targets. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, stressed that NATO allies arming and training Ukrainians is tantamount to direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict.