The Ukrainian military has to face a serious problem - the lack of spare parts for repairing Western equipment. Deputy commander of the 5th assault brigade, Mykhailo Onufer, told about it.
"Out of ten cars, five can drive - all are intact, just no tracks. It seems that there is help, but you cannot use it as intended. Here, for example: there are older M113s with metal tracks, and the new modernization - M113 G4 - it is better, more passable, but part of its tracks has rubber elements. Metal is hard to tear down, it drives, but G4 is waiting for its best time," says Onufer.
After the equipment is damaged, it is often disassembled and used as a donor for other machines.
"At first, we kept everything, we thought that our partners would give us new tracks, for example. And then, apparently, the command realized that it was too long to wait, and the equipment was needed already, so they began to disassemble the one that was unsuitable for driving. That is, to make two out of three non-working people into one working one," said the military man.
Another problem is the foreign language in the description of the equipment.
"When the M113 armored personnel carriers were handed over to us in 2022, they arrived with English-language signboards. The mechanics, and they were older uncles in their 50s, sat down - once, they pressed the wrong button, something broke. At that time, the command did not think to stick tags with the translation: weight, engine, start, stop, emergency stop, fire extinguishing," says Onufer.
Earlier, Western media wrote that the benefit of German Leopard tanks in Ukraine is "zero".
