1,500 Damaged Ukraine Armor, Other Weapons Repaired, Returned To Service

This is presumed to mean returned over time rather than all at once recently. 

The implication is that Ukraine is effectively repairing damaged equipment at a fairly substantial rate despite the challenges posed by logistics, uncertain component supplies and other obstacles. It is also reassuring to foreign suppliers that their contributions are not going to waste. JL

Defense Express reports:

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced on July 6th that 1,500 pieces of equipment and weapons have been returned to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), including MT-LB armored auxiliary vehicles, BREM armored recovery vehicles, other types of armor, and over 2,000 items of military-use property. Defense Express assumes that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine's statement could refer to handovers occurring regularly throughout the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation, not all at once.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced in a Facebook post on July 6th that 1,500 pieces of equipment and weapons have been returned to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), including MT-LB armored auxiliary vehicles, BREM armored recovery vehicles, other types of armor, and over 2,000 items of military-use property.

However, the statement did not specify when this transfer occurred. This ambiguity makes it difficult to confirm if the transfer of this diverse range of equipment and weapons to the armed forces happened recently. This is an important nuance to understand in this context.

 

Statement on the return of "surplus property" from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Note that this is an automatic translation and some details might be incorrect

Reading the post literally, one might conclude that the Ukrainian army is about to receive reinforcements with armored vehicles and other important arms and devices soon. On the other hand, this raises the natural question of why such reinforcements did not occur during the previous two years of the full-scale war with the Russian Federation.

MT-LB-AT armored vehicle with a DShK machine gun turret in storage / Open-source archive photo

After all, the property mentioned by the Ministry became "surplus" long before the beginning of the Russian all-out offensive campaign in February 2022. The Ukrainian Army needed these assets to be put back into operation as quickly as possible, and an almost 2.5-year delay doesn't align with this information.

 

The logic behind the Ministry of Defense's sudden disclosure is understandable, too: the official notification omits specifying when the equipment was handed over to the armed forces because the department had to balance between the obligation to publicly report on activities aimed at strengthening the national military and the need to keep sensitive data secret.

Defense Express cautiously assumes that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine's statement could refer to handovers occurring regularly throughout the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation, not all at once.

A BREM-Ch recovery vehicle of the UAF tows a captured russian BMP-1 in Kupiansk, October 2022 / Open-source photo

A brief reminder, in 2022, there were reports about the presence of some exotic military vehicles in use with the Ukrainian Defense Forces, which were not officially in service at the start of the full-scale war.

For example, Defense Express reported that a rare version of the MT-LB with a DShK machine gun was used to liberate the Kherson Region in the fall of 2022. Around the same time, the UAF showcased how they used a rare BREM-Ch armored vehicle to recover trophies seized from Russians in Kupiansk.

BREM-Ch in service with the UAF / Archive photo: Defense Express