Give Ukraine our spare LAVs

James Hollings writes:

This week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern denounced Russia over the atrocities discovered in Bucha, and promised more support for Ukraine.

That support included a second round of sanctions, looking at importation controls, and getting “our people supporting some of the efforts”.

That comes on top of our earlier donation of surplus military equipment; a total of 1066 body armour plates, 473 helmets and 571 camouflage vests. All very nice-sounding, but compared to what many other countries are doing, pitifully small, even mean. …

But what could New Zealand send? Well, actually quite a lot. It has 105 armoured troop carriers, or light armoured vehichles (LAV3s). Back in 2020 Stuff reported that the New Zealand Defence Force was struggling to find a buyer for 30 of them that were surplus to requirements. My understanding is they are still unsold – the Defence Force will confirm only that there are “ongoing discussions around the sale”. Why not send them to Ukraine?

The LAVs are powerful eight-wheeled vehicles that would provide good protection to Ukrainian troops. They were used by our forces in Afghanistan and, according to the Defence Force, protected troops from bombs on several occasions. Described by the Defence Force as a “world-class vehicle capable of providing protected mobility to soldiers on the battlefield”, the LAV3 is “highly mobile, and comes equipped with a lethal arsenal of weapons and systems making it an ideal vehicle for combat, security and peace support operations”.

This should be a no brainer. The last Labour Government purchased more LAVs than we could ever use (one of the worst spending debacles in decades). Donating the surplus to Ukraine is a win-win.