Some 100 vintage armored vehicles- previously in service in the British army- have been bought by Ukrainian volunteers who raised UAH 236 million ($6.3 million) through crowdfunding.
"We collected UAH 236 million ($6.3 million) in 1.5 days! With these funds, we managed to contract 101 units of tracked armored vehicles. The largest batch of armored vehicles for our army was purchased by the people," said a Facebook post by the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation.
The first of 4 armored v ehicles are already in Ukraine. The armored vehicle has been serviced and equipped the United Kingdom where cmmunications and weapons were installed. We immediately transfer all armored vehicles to the Ground Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for further distribution, the post said.
The post ends by saying, "Thank you for donating to everyone: hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Ukrainian businesses, children and caring people from abroad. We are grateful to our logistics partner, the Nova Poshta company, which covered the cost of delivering the armor to Ukraine."
Among these 101 units there are 8 models of equipment: FV103 Spartan, Samaritan, Sultan, Stormer, Shielder, FV432, FV434 and Samson.
According to open source information, tte FV103 Spartan is one of many light tracked vehicles based on the Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) (CVR-T) which was commissioned by the British Army in the 1960s.
The CVR-T vehicles in this series are known for their small size. Their purpose is to provide reconnaissance and infantry support. Some versions of the CVR(T) are even shorter than the the Toyota Land Cruiser and some only slightly taller and wider.