MOSCOW. Dec 14 (Interfax) - The Military-Industrial Company (MIC) and the Russian Defense Ministry have signed a contract for launching a research and development (R&D) phase of the Strela project of lightweight armored vehicles, the MIC press service said.
"The company has obtained authorized technical requirements for developing four new variants of the Strela lightweight armored vehicle next year," the press service quoted MIC CEO Alexander Krasovitsky as saying.
This will be a multirole armored vehicle and chassis for mounting weapons and special equipment on its basis, Krasovitsky said.
The company also plans to design a multirole non-armored vehicle and chassis for mounting special equipment on its basis, he said.
Prototypes of armored vehicles being developed based on the R&D outcomes will undergo initial trials next year, whose schedule has been agreed upon and authorized.
"Preliminary tests of prototypes of vehicles that are ready, namely the Strela multirole armored vehicles and the Strela protected amphibious vehicle, will also begin," Krasovitsky said.
The MIC developed a family of Strela lightweight armored vehicles proactively. After it presented some prototypes to the Defense Ministry's command staff, a decision was made to start an R&D phase of these vehicles for the ministry's needs. The basic version of the Strela family of armored vehicles has a gross weight of up to 4.9 tonnes, Class 2 level of protection according to the General Technical Specifications (OTT), and road speed capability of up to 155 km/h.
Unofficial information indicates that a basic prototype of the Strela armored vehicle was involved in the Kavkaz 2020 strategic command post exercise in September, where it manifested good performance.