DONETSK, January 14. /TASS/. There is "nothing special" about US-made Stryker armored vehicles, and their deliveries to pro-Kiev troops only illustrate the fact that the armed forces of Ukraine are running out of armored vehicles, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Militia has told TASS.
Earlier, the Politico newspaper reported citing Pentagon sources that the US Department of Defense was examining the possibility of delivering Stryker vehicles to Ukraine. They may be included into the new aid package, expected to be announced next week.
"From the military point of view, this news has only one meaning: we are destroying their armored vehicles so quickly that earlier deliveries cannot compensate for that. Their reserves of outdated BMP-1 vehicles, delivered from Eastern Europe, have already been eliminated. They don’t have enough vehicles to make up for losses even in military units that have already been created, let alone to create new regiments of freshly recruited servicemen. That is why the West has to ponder on sharing its own armored vehicles," he said.
The DPR People’s Militia spokesperson added that Stryker personnel carriers can protect servicemen from small-caliber light arms, but are useless against all mortar rounds and main armaments of Russia’s BTR-82A or BMP-2 armored personnel carriers.
"This vehicle presents interest only in rare modifications, when additional equipment is installed to turn it into a command post carrier or to use it for artillery guidance. But such models are rare," the spokesperson continued. ‘In general, there is nothing special about it - just an ordinary wheeled armored personnel carrier.".