Prague, July 24 (CTK) – The Czech military will buy more than 140 new armoured vehicles for 9.2 billion crowns in the next few years on the basis of the contracts submitted by Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky (ANO) that the government approved on Monday, he has tweeted.
This will be the biggest military purchase during the whole four-year term of the current coalition government of the Social Democrats (CSSD), ANO and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL).
“We continue upgrading our military,” Stropnicky tweeted commenting on the contracts.
The military will spend up to 4.4 billion crowns on 80 light armoured vehicles with the Iveco chassis and 4.8 billion crowns on 62 Titus 6×6 armoured vehicles from the Tatra Export supplier.
The light armoured vehicles will serve the units of radiation surveillance in Liberec, north Bohemia, for the automatic detection of the presence of radioactive, chemical and biological substances in space, the tactical taking of samples as well as the processing and sending of data to military units.
The new vehicles will replace outdated equipment. The state Military Research Institute, which is authorised to handle combat chemical substances necessary for testing the vehicles, will supply them to the military by the end of 2022.
Tatra Export will supply the other 62 Titus armoured vehicles in 2020-2024.
One-third of them are to coordinate the artillery and mortar units’ firing. Another six will serve as command and staff vehicles and the remaining 36 will be used to secure and transfer information.
The government also approved some other military contracts worth 124 million crowns in total on Monday.
By November 2019, the military wants to buy and instal a radiocommunication system to secure the transfer of the air control system from the analogue to the digital. The Military Research Institute will supply the equipment for up to 95 million crowns.
Another 39 million crowns will go to the purchase of systems of the military air information service.
The Defence Ministry, primarily its armament section, has been criticised for delayed contracts on significant upgrading projects.
At the end of June, the Defence Ministry cancelled a competition for the deputy minister in charge of military purchases.
The post has been vacant since February when Daniel Kostoval left it to become a political deputy defence minister. His previous post was temporarily filled with Pavel Beran. An open competition for it will be put up since only one candidate applied for the post.
