image source: Andrea Adriani https:esgnews.com
Greener, safer, freer. With these words, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson summed up Sweden’s vision for the EU during its presidency. A large part of the “safer and freer” bit is shoring up, and even increasing, support to Ukraine. A few days, later, and to that end, the government announced that Sweden will be sending the biggest package of military help to Ukraine than it has ever sent before.
“Fastest Howitzer in the world”
The Swedish package consists of the artillery system called Archer, the infantry carrier called “90,” as well as other military items. The Archer is a relatively zippy and mobile wheeled vehicle, that can send artillery grenades over a 50km range and can go 65 km/hour. The gun carriage is mounted on a long bed truck from Volvo and that tips up to fire. As it can be controlled via computer, a soldier doesn’t need to leave the relative safety of the cab to operate it. Youtube’s Extreme World calls it “the fastest howitzer in the world,” and Ukraine has been asking for it for months.
Sweden will also send around 50 armored infantry light tanks called “90,” that can transport up to eight soldiers and that has a mounted 40mm automatic canon. The package will also include the light, portable, Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAWs), mine clearing equipment and assault rifles according to USNews.
Gathering dust anyway
It will take months for the main events, Archer and 90, to arrive in the Ukraine and be up and running. Ukrainian soldiers need to be trained on the Archer system somewhere – perhaps here in Sweden, which would be new. Also, the Archers that Sweden may now send to Ukraine are not the latest model, but the Archer B model that are mostly sitting in garages under car covers. The latter is due to the fact that Sweden must still be able to mount a defense itself should it be attacked, while the former’s time factor is due to current laws on weapons export.
In the future, the time lag might be shortened. To enable Sweden to send Ukraine these heavier munitions, Sweden and Ukraine have to enter into an agreement to cooperate on defense equipment procurement. This way, Ukraine can jointly order defense equipment with Sweden, allowing Sweden to place additional orders to existing contracts and give the equipment to Ukraine. Time and money saved.
All this is not 100% uncontroversial, but a full-scale war happening on the European continent has changed everyone’s notions on what the future was going to look like. To be greener, we’ll need safer and freer.