Hi All!
I recently lucked out and got to meet with the head of one of Ukraine’s biggest privately-owned arms companies, and then I got to crawl all over their latest armored vehicle (below) and drive it some. Yes I got paid to do that.
As I pointed out to everyone I met, since I drove armored Toyota Landcruisers in Donbas, line of contact a lot, for more than five years, I really, really thought I was well-informed for that particular reporting assignment. Everyone was polite.
Kyiv Post will come out with a pair of pretty good and possibly excellent videos in due course.
In the meantime, I’m glad to take your questions. In general, the topics I might be able to speak to would probably be:
- The Varta2 (pictured) armored truck from the combat driver/field guy/truck enthusiast point of view
- What privately-owned and -operated arms manufacturing is like, in Ukraine in a war, according to a CEO (Vladislav Belbas, pictured), right now in that business.
I look forwards to your questions and all being well I’ll take a shot at answering over the weekend.
FYI all shots here are stolen from Ukrnews, Militarniy et al. When KP does its report they can swipe from us, natch.
I would really like to have one to park it in my driveway. Do they take trade-in's?