Donetsk, Aug 20 – DAN. The statement of Ukrainian president Petr Poroshenko on mass production of 152 mm rounds for the Giatsint artillery system is "a charade and rent seeking at the expense of budget", DPR Operations Command deputy commander Eduard Basurin told DAN.
Poroshenko announced in his Facebook post that Ukraine finished testing 152 mm rounds for the Giatsint artillery system and launched its mass production.
"There is no talk about quality of these rounds which have allegedly been duly tested and are ready to be supplied to army. It is more likely to be a charade and rent seeking at the expense of state budget. Well, Poroshenko loves bragging about "achievements" of the "best army in Europe", but we have all seen the real results in practice," Basurin said.
He reminded about Ukraine's sporadic attempts to show off its "advanced army developments" and presentations of new equipment and hardware. "Usually the advanced technologies turned out to be lethal for Ukrainian troops and unfit to fulfill combat tasks," Basurin said.
The most illustrative was the case of "Molot" mortar. Its exploitation resulted in multiple casualties among Ukrainian army personnel and eventually its usage was banned by Poroshenko's decree. In 2014, Kiev sent notorious "BTR-4E" to Donbass after they had been rejected by Iraq as defective: only 56 of 88 armored personnel carriers shipped by Ukraine could be started.
Giatsint artillery system is a Soviet long-range large caliber system developed in mid-70s and updated several times since then. *ot