Malaysian mercenaries still in Ukraine?

[TanChong]

Last year I found the information about a Malaysian Lee Bing Hang who joined Ukrainian Army and become a mercenary in the Russian-Ukraine war. After that I did my best to collect any additional information about it and found something interesting...

Seems like the Lee Bing Hang case is just a top of the iceberg....

[MicroB]

I suspect this letter was about Ukraine sniffing around for more Alvis Stormers. The Stormer was a stretched version of the CVR family (Scorpion, Scimitar, Spartan etc), used for air defence and mine laying. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The UK donated systems with Martlet surface to air missiles, and these have proven very effecitve. Surprisingly, the Spartan IFV has proven popular. Its not very big, and the armour isn't  much, but it nips around the battle field quickly, and Ukrainian mechanics find it easy to work on (the petrol versions used the Jaguar Straight 6, essentially a version of the E-Type engine, but most were upgraded with a Cummins diesel). A significant number os Spartans, Srikers and Samaritans have ended up there in addition to those drawn from MOD reserves, because quite a few ended up in private hands.

 

Oman, Indonesia and Malaysia had between them about 70 Stormers, in addition to the 60 British. The Malaysian ones have been retired.

 

Ukrainian Stormer

 

 

 

It looks like because of life extension programmes, BAE Landsystems can keep these things operational and upgrade them, eg Stormer 30. BAE is establishing a factory in Ukraine. Ukraine is moving on from getting hold of whatever it can to defend against the Russians, towards proper defence procurement. They have a more than capable indigenous defence industry. I suppose they will want to rationalise their platforms, but migrate away from Soviet era kit. Whether Stormer/Spartan will be part of that is another matter.