Italian Combat vehicle in new fight with Russian tigr

A controversial contract for the delivery of Italian light multirole vehicles (LMV) to Russia appears to have survived the recent reshuffle of the Russian Defense Ministry's leadership that saw the dismissal of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and his arms procurement chief Alexander Sukhorukov.

But future deliveries of the Lynx may depend on new trials to be held within months as newly-appointed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his team want to eliminate all controversy around the contract.

Serdyukov and Sukhorukov actively lobbied for the Iveco LMV M65 Lynx, which was picked over the locally produced GAZ-2330 Tigr armored vehicle in a rare departure from the military's principle of "buying domestic."

Tigr is a high-mobility multirole military vehicle manufactured by Russia’s Military-Industrial Corporation (MIC), a GAZ Group division, at the Arzamas machine-manufacturing plant.

The decision to buy Lynx has been widely publicized in Russia, after the Italian vehicle proved its superb armor protection during NATO operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but Tigr, which the maker claims is at least 70 percent cheaper, showed superior off-road performance at the Russian comparative trials in 2010 and is considered by Russian experts to be better suited to the needs of the Russian army.