Lithuania: thermal sights to be handed over to Ukraine’s special forces

Lithuania will hand over 24 thermal sights to Ukraine’s special forces, the country’s Defense Ministry reports. “Under the plan, these will be mobile thermovisual surveillance devices,” the ministry said, adding that the devices were valued at over 340,000 euros. The ministry also confirmed that Lithuania would soon start handing over weapons to Ukraine, but refrained…

Lithuania: military test Israeli Spike anti-tank missiles for first time

Spike missiles, fire-and-forget guided missile systems mounted on Vilkas Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), have been tested for the first time by the Lithuanian military. The Israel-made system was tried out on January 14-18 during a combat shooting drills of the Grand Duke Algirdas Mechanized Infantry Battalion. Spike missiles have been installed on Lithuania’s newly acquired…

Ukraine: state arms exporter signs $332 million worth of contracts in 2021

Ukraine’s state-owned arms exporter, Ukrspecexport, received 144 foreign delegations and signed contracts worth $332 million in 2021, the company’s press service reported. Last year, Ukrspecexport managed to intensify international activities and achieve growth in economic performance. This led to a significant increase in the total amount of newly concluded foreign economic contracts. “Although the revival…

Baltic States: joint MRLS artillery to be developed

On December 21, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian defense ministers agreed to jointly develop a rocket artillery capability. In their joint statement, the ministers “declared their intent to engage in a joint development of regional interoperable Multiple Launch Rocket System capability”. “I cannot say specifically right now how it will look like, as we only have…