Russian Army To Replace Tracked Vehicles With Wheeled Armored Vehicles

The Russian Defense Ministry has decided to outfit the Ground forces with wheeled armored that have a longer service life than the tracked armored vehicles. “The Defense Ministry has decided to replace the majority of tracked armored vehicles with wheeled vehicles,” Ground Force commander Col. Gen. Vladimir Chirkin said. “We will soon start R&D work on the development of wheeled vehicles”. The replacement will involve self-propelled guns, air defense systems and light tanks. The use of wheeled vehicles will allow the military to minimize railroad transport during redeployment. “The service life of the tracked vehicles until a major overhaul is up to 30,000 kilometers while that of the wheeled vehicles is up to 1 million kilometers,” Chirkin said. Last year, Russia signed a deal with Italy’s Iveco for the acquisition of semi-knocked down assembly of Lynx light multirole armored vehicles for the Russian Ground Forces in the central Russia city of Voronezh.