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✇Euromaidan Press
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German defense giant Rheinmetall secures €70 billion order for 7,000 armored vehicles to equip Bundeswehr amid Russia’s war

Par :Olena Mukhina

Ukrainian troops train in Poland to master Allied Leopard 2 tanks

The German conglomerate Rheinmetall expects orders worth up to 70 billion euros solely from the Bundeswehr. This concerns the delivery of up to 7,000 armored vehicles. The rapid growth is driven by Russia’s war against Ukraine, BILD reports. 

Rheinmetall has already built a repair plant on Ukrainian territory. The next in line is ammunition production. Papperger has personally met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and stated that contracts for building a new plant have already been signed. Ukraine is also testing the new Lynx armored personnel carrier, which will be produced in the country in the future by Rheinmetall.

The new order includes Leopard 2 tanks, Puma infantry fighting vehicles, and Boxer armored personnel carriers, says Armin Papperger, the company’s CEO. 

To handle the volume, the conglomerate is building ten new factories, most of them in Germany. Rheinmetall plans to increase its workforce from 40,000 to 70,000 employees. The company is already valued higher than BMW or Mercedes-Benz and is second only to Lockheed Martin among Western defense companies by market capitalization.

“Our goal is to increase sales volume to 40–50 billion euros by 2030. This will be a tenfold increase compared to the pre-war 2021. We want to create jobs here, in Germany,” Papperger says.

Last week, Ukraine’s Air Force reported that its soldier began to use Rheinmetall’s Oerlikon Skynex short-range air defense (SHORAD) system against Russia’s Shahed drones, deploying the advanced cannon system to defend critical infrastructure. 

The German-supplied Skynex uses the Oerlikon Mk3 35-mm cannon with an effective range of 4,000 meters and a rate of fire of 1,000 rounds per minute. Each cannon is equipped with its own radar and electro-optical system, enabling precise targeting even against small drones.

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