The American publication The Washington Post has released a new article regarding the current situation in Ukraine amid the full-scale war against the aggressor country, Russia.
The article itself was illustrated, in particular, by a photograph of the Yugoslav-made wheeled armored vehicle BOV, which is equipped with anti-drone protection and is being used in combat against Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine.
From Defense Express, we emphasize in this situation – we do not intend to discuss the entire WP publication, which can be read at this link, but we want to draw attention to this detail involving the Yugoslav armored vehicle BOV in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which, in turn, "is worth a thousand words" and vividly illustrates the challenges faced by our defenders in repelling the aggressor in Eastern Ukraine.
It is also worth noting that the aforementioned photo is, in fact, the first public documentation of the presence of Yugoslav wheeled armored vehicles BOV in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; prior to this, there were only mentions in the press that Slovenia had transferred 26 wheeled armored vehicles of this type to Ukraine in the spring of 2024.
Finally, to specify – these Yugoslav wheeled armored vehicles were received by our military against the backdrop of a delay in military assistance from the USA, which lasted from the fall of 2023 to the end of April 2024, and currently, these Yugoslav BOV armored vehicles can be considered a specific symbol of how insufficient the volumes of military assistance from the West in heavy weaponry for the Armed Forces of Ukraine are at present.
At the moment, these wheeled BOV armored vehicles are not produced serially, and even for the Balkan countries, this equipment has already become rare: by the beginning of 2024, Slovenia no longer had these armored vehicles in service, the Croatian army had only six of this type, the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina had 32 vehicles, and the Serbian army had 70 vehicles.
The specifications of the BOV wheeled armored vehicles are as follows:
- combat weight – 9.1 tons;
- crew – 2 persons, with the capacity to accommodate up to 8 personnel;
- speed – up to 95 km/h on highways.
Earlier, Defense Express also reported on the differences between the T-72M1 and M-84 tanks, which Croatia is set to provide to the Armed Forces of Ukraine as part of one of the military assistance formats.