"Lynx" on the 2015 Army Forum in Kubinka. What for?
The BMD-4М, 2C25 Sprut, T-90A, BTR-90, BMP-3, and BMPT were also blacklisted. It was planned to stop the purchase of domestic armored vehicles "Tiger".
There were even statements that the army until the 2015 year will not buy anything domestic. It seemed that the then official of the Defense Ministry was not interested in how the Russian defense industry would survive and whether it would survive at all. But they launched an unusual activity on the "western direction." In addition to the IVECO LMV, the airborne began to "woo" long-obsolete IVECO VM 90. It was reported that "Lynx" will be equipped not only with special forces of the Airborne Forces, but also entire assault landing brigades, as well as reconnaissance units of the ground forces.
Machines were delivered to the Russian army that did not eliminate the deficiencies identified in Afghanistan
Began mass purchases of foreign sniper weapons. On the tests were taken wheel fighter tanks "Centauro" and BMP "Freccia". Allegedly, this technique was taken only for familiarization, but, nevertheless, information was leaking in the media that a purchase of a license for the production of Italian cars in domestic enterprises was being prepared.
True, skeptics joked that the same thing happened with “Lynx” with “Centauro”: they would give a resounding Russian name, and then everything would be limited to a screwdriver assembly of vehicle sets sent from abroad and screwing up the plates with these same Russian names. Nothing of his will not.
Chassis elements. Rust visible on some parts
Also, according to some data, works on modernization of the engine and transmission compartment of the T-72 tank began, along with the French, rumors about the Italian engine for the Armat tank. There were statements about a possible appeal to France with a request to supply self-propelled CAESAR self-propelled guns and to the Finns - about the desire to get 500 Patria armored personnel carriers. Plus, of course, the loudest and ingloriously ended cooperation project - UDC "Mistral".
All these clever maneuvers, I must say, very often met with the approval of those who sympathized with the reformers in the defense ministry. Say, "the domestic defense industry cannot create anything competitive," and the West is our friend, and there is nothing wrong with the fact that the equipment of a "friendly" NATO bloc will go massively to the troops.
Inside the car is very tight
The impression was created that the defense ministry did not at all assume that complications in relations with Europe and the United States could occur, that a crisis could occur in Ukraine or in another place where the interests of NATO and Russia would collide.
There are opinions that at that time they expected a sharp exacerbation of the situation in the former Soviet Central Asia, after the start of the withdrawal from Afghanistan of the forces of the Western coalition. A possible military conflict in this region was seen as a repetition of what happened there since 2001. So, in order to fight the Taliban, in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, IVECO LMV, Centauro, CAESAR and other Western "toys" should have been massively needed.
Driver's seat
But it seems that our strategists have miscalculated, the situation in Central Asia is still relatively stable, the Taliban are mired in clashes with even more bloodthirsty terrorists. But the trouble came, as always, from where it was not expected. Relations with the West have escalated almost to the state of the Cold War. One could only imagine what the level of combat readiness of the units that had massively switched to Western equipment was, how many hundreds of foreign-made cars currently would be parks without spare parts. It’s good that the UVZ team managed to “break through” a budget upgraded version of the T-72, and Arzamas managed its own BTR-82.
We must pay tribute to the current leadership of the Ministry of Defense, which from the very beginning has managed to improve relations with the domestic defense industry. As a result, we now have sufficiently combat-ready troops, and not "forces for conducting police and peacekeeping operations in the Central Asian theater of operations." Although there is still much work to do: many gentlemen-reformers managed to tinker so much.