Swedish CV90 Fighting Vehicles Have Arrived In Ukraine

Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive was just four or five days old when a contingent of Ukrainian soldiers in Sweden completed a months-long training course preparing them to operate CV90 fighting vehicles.

The timing was notable. The 37-ton CV90 is Sweden’s answer to the American M-2 fighting vehicle—and the Ukrainian army already was losing a lot of M-2 in its initial assault on Russian defenses in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southern Ukraine.

Sweden pledged 50 CV90s to Ukraine’s war effort. We don’t know which brigade will operate them—or even which service: the army, the marines or the separate air-assault forces.

But it’s safe to assume the three-person fighting vehicles with their powerful 40-millimeter cannons will be heading south to join the counteroffensive. “We will be at the center of it,” one Ukrainian CV90 trainee said. The CV90s began arriving in Ukraine no later than Wednesday.

There are several major variants of the tracked CV90, which entered service with the Swedish army in the early 1990s and now also equips the armies of Switzerland, Norway, The Netherlands, Finland, Estonia and Denmark. Slovakia and the Czech Republic also have ordered the vehicle.

The CV90 is 12 tons heavier than the M-2 is but carries just six infantry—one fewer than can squeeze into the A2ODS version of the M-2 that Ukraine operates. The CV90’s extra weight compared to the M-2 translates into superior armor protection.

“Had the chance to fire one of these during a visit to Sweden,” tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general. “This is a very good piece of kit.”

Better than the M-2? Perhaps. The Ukrainian army’s 47th Assault Brigade, which got most of the 109 M-2s the United States donated to Ukraine, has lost at least 17 of them in the first 11 or 12 days of the counteroffensive.

Most of the losses occurred on or around June 8, as the 47th Brigade and its partner unit, the 33rd Mechanized Brigade, tried and apparently failed to cross a Russian minefield just south of Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhzhia.

But most of the crews and passengers of the ill-fated M-2s survived, thanks to the M-2’s robust design. “This metal saves lives,” one M-2 crewman wrote after escaping his damaged vehicle. The United States on Tuesday pledged to Ukraine an additional 15 M-2s as replacements for the vehicles Ukraine has lost.

It’s all but unavoidable: there will be losses once the CV90 battalions join the fight. But the Swedish vehicles should do what the M-2s have done—and protect their occupants from all but the most devastating Russian fire.

That’s important. Vehicles are easier to replace than trained, experienced crews are—and trained, experienced crews matter more in the end.

That M-2 crewman who lost his ride in the assault near Mala Tokmachka on June 8? He’s eager to return to the fight. “I need a few months to recover from my injury,” he wrote. “But [I’m] glad to continue to be a part of the 47th Assault Brigade on my return.”

“This is war,” he added. “A heavy one and a sacrifice. And yes, there are losses.” Despite these losses, “our own people continue to replenish their ammunition and are tearing our land away from the imperial occupiers by the meter.”