Ukrainian volunteer unveils scale of work in delivery of APCs to Ukraine
One of the armored personnel carriers purchased by the Serhiy Prytula Foundation (Photo:Благодійний Фонд Сергія Притули / Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation via Facebook)
Volunteer and politician Serhiy Prytula revealed how many Spartans and other armored personnel carriers his foundation has already brought to Ukraine during an interview with Radio NV on April 6.
"Ninety-seven out of 101," Prytula said when asked how many of the armored vehicles contracted by his foundation are already in Ukraine.
The volunteer clarified that the armored personnel carriers have already been distributed among the brigades, but the Ground Forces Command — which was in charge of their distribution — forbids the disclosure of details at this stage.
"We have fulfilled and exceeded our promise to the people in terms of the number of Spartan APCs," Prytula said.
“There are 66 of them, these are Spartans for airborne troops. There are four Samaritans — medical evacuation APCs. There are Sultan command vehicles. And this is a Samson, a repair and recovery vehicle. We made up the rest with various other types of armored vehicles.”
Prytula clarified that, in addition to Spartans, his foundation has purchased FV432 armored personnel carriers, which are designed to transport fire teams and can accommodate even more troops than Spartans.
In addition, the volunteer's foundation purchased an FV434 repair and recovery vehicle, a number of Stormers that can be equipped with anti-aircraft guns, and a Shield multifunctional armored personnel carrier.
"It can be used as an anti-tank gun, a mortar, a roving vehicle, and much more," he said of the Shield APC.
Prytula promised that if there is positive feedback from the military, his foundation will continue to contract armored vehicles, but perhaps not on such a large scale.
"It’s important to note that we didn’t just purchase this equipment and hand it over," he added.
“We closely monitored the preparation of this equipment for shipment. And when the equipment arrived in Ukraine, we hired a person from the UK who has about 25 years of experience with this particular type of armored vehicles. I won't say where the representatives of those brigades and units — mechanics, drivers, crew leaders, repairmen — went. Some of the equipment was distributed to the units, but some was left at the training ground so that they could learn the item identification and master the armored vehicles. The Foundation paid for the work of this instructor. The training has already ended. I think the vehicles are probably already on the front line somewhere.”
According to the volunteer, the brigades installed weapons and communication systems on the APCs themselves.
On March 3, Prytula said that his charitable foundation had purchased and is delivering a record batch of 101 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.
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