Ukraine is facing an invasion from the east. The second biggest country on our continent with an area of nearly 604 thousand square kilometers is being conquered by the Russian army from several directions. The breadbasket of Europe has been turned into a giant warehouse of military equipment of all kinds.
Due to their shared history, both sides are using similar technology from the Soviet era. Howitzers, for example, often face each other, which differ only in the varying degrees of modernization and, most importantly, the much-publicized markings on Russian vehicles.
While Russia (so far) dominates the skies and wins in destructive missile power and quantity, the Ukrainian defences are nevertheless bolstered again by anti-aircraft and anti-tank small arms complexes from the West, Turkish drones and, undoubtedly, by military intel from NATO and the US. Let’s take a look at some of these weapons in the following few chapters.
The Home Guard is often armed with a range of Soviet-made light weapons and 39mm assault rifles, which are dominated by the AK-74 and the RPK-74 light machine gun. Territorial Defence also has lightweight PKM and NSV machine guns based on images on social media.
The Russian side also uses similar small arms in various modifications. In the fighting for the Hostomel airfield, Ukrainian forces came across AK-12 rifles, AK-74M, SVDM and Fort-301 sniper rifles and PKP Pecheneg machine guns, for example.
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Ukraine is, obviously, supplied with small arms by Western countries as well. In the Czech Republic’s case, at the very beginning of the fighting, it was, for instance, vz. 58 and vz. 61 Shkorpion submachine guns, vz. 59 universal machine guns, and again SVD Dragunov sniper rifles and Czech Falcons including ammunition.
