Ukraine’s military orders armored recovery and repair vehicles for delivery in 2021

In parallel with the ARRV ‘Lev’, Lviv AVF has made an upgrade on the armored vehicle ‘Bison”, particularly by adding a KT-7.62 machinegun produced by Mayak Factory of Kyiv.

CEO of Lviv AVF, a company incorporated with the Ukroboronprom state-controlled defense industries group, has briefed ArmyInfo on how his company is proceeding with the orders it had received under the Government Defense Procurement Contract 2021.

“Last year, our company in partnership with the Armed Forces’ Central Directorate for Armored Hardware upgraded this armored truck vehicle to BREM-1/Lev capability,” Viktor Androshchuk told ArmyInfo, the Defense Express online media outlet reports.

“We have mounted it with a telescope crane manipulator, a front bulldozing blade, and an auxiliary winch and added an electric welder. We will have to deliver around a dozen of these truck vehicles to the Ministry of Defense within this year’s timeframe,” he said.

Beside this, the company continued with its upgrading of the BTS-4 armored truck vehicle (which was derived from the T-54 MBT) to ‘Bison’ ARRV capability. The upgrade features a more powerful engine and an additional turret for the commander, armed with Mayak Factory’s KT-7.62 machinegun.

Lviv AVF has over UAH 300M worth of MoD contracts for repair, overhaul and upgrading of armored hardware for 2021, the company CEO has said.

As noted, Lviv AVF delivered one ‘Bison’ ARRV to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in November 2020. In the previous year, the company completed deliveries of some 15 these vehicles to an undisclosed international customer.

Built on the T-72 MBT chassis, the ‘Lev’ ARRV was unveiled at the 2018 Arms and Security Expo, but there have been no reports since about it being delivered to military users in Ukraine.