Ukraine and Sweden plan to jointly produce one thousand CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.
Last summer, the Ukrainian and Swedish governments agreed to start joint production of Swedish CV-90 tracked armored combat vehicles but did not specify the volume and schedule of such production.
“Designed and manufactured in Sweden, it [CV-90 – ed.] incorporates everything a modern combat vehicle should have, and its main advantage is the safety of the crew (three people) and troops (up to eight people), because no other infantry fighting vehicle has such protection as the CV-90,” Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram.
Sweden supplied Ukraine with CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles in the summer of 2023. CV-90s are already performing combat missions at the frontline. They were first spotted in the Lyman sector on the eastern front (Donetsk Oblast).
Hanna Maliar said that during one of the battles, a CV-90 was covering Ukrainian infantry from Russian tank fire but was hit by a Russian Lantset kamikaze drone.
“However, neither the crew nor the troops inside were injured. They moved to another armored vehicle and continued to perform combat missions. If the CV-90 had been replaced by a Soviet BMP-1 or BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle, no one would have survived because those vehicles have virtually no armor,” Hanna Maliar said.
CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles have effective anti-tank weapons and a powerful automatic 40-mm cannon that can fire at a distance of up to three kilometers, with a maximum range of over 12 kilometers.
The CV-90 uses an innovative chassis based on Formula-1 technology, where the suspension adapts to the ground. This technology ensures high cross-country ability, while rubber inserts in the tracks significantly reduce noise during driving.
“Ukrainian defenders say that you can’t even hear the Swedish BMP from 200 meters away,” Hanna Maliar said.
During Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Sweden on 19 August 2023, he and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed a statement of intent on enhanced cooperation on the CV-90 maintenance and production.
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