WARSAW, Poland — The Lithuanian Ministry of Defence signed a deal with its German counterpart to purchase 168 M577 armored personnel carriers (APCs), the ministry said in a statement.
"The Lithuanian Armed Forces are buying command, indirect fire support, medical evacuation and training [variants of the] M577 armored personnel carriers [to] fill in the shortages of armored vehicles in the Lithuanian land force," Lt. Col. Ramunas Baronas, the commander of the Logistic Support Command of the Lithuanian military, was quoted as saying in the statement.
Under the plan, the vehicles will be operated by the Lithuanian land force and delivered in the years 2017 to 2018 along with spare parts, maintenance tools and other equipment for the vehicles' crews.
Lithuania has intensified efforts to upgrade its military capabilities following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. For 2017, the country's government allocated a defense budget of €723.5 million (US $768.9 million), an increase of about 26 percent compared with Lithuania’s military expenditure this year. Of these, about 43 percent is to be allocated to acquisitions of new weapons and military equipment as well as infrastructural investments for the Lithuanian Armed Forces, according to data from the Defence Ministry.
Due to the fact that the German Bundeswehr was to decommission the vehicles, the acquisition was worth some €1.6 million, according to the Lithuanian ministry.
The M577 is based on the M113 tracked vehicle. The APC can be manned by a crew of five.
Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.
