The origin of the two BMR armored ambulances that Spain is going to deliver to Ukraine

@DefAviation ES 1·09·2024 · 21:51 0

This Monday, January 8, we had news of the delivery to Ukraine of two more BMR armored vehicles, a Spanish model from the 1970s..

The rare prototype of the Spanish BMR armored vehicle that appeared in Ukraine
Surprise for the secret delivery to Ukraine of the criticized Spanish CETME L rifles

This Monday the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) announced these vehicles, converted into ambulances by the Tecnove company in the town of Herencia (Ciudad Real), noting that "they will travel to Ukraine soon". The AECID has reported that the donation of these armored vehicles responds to a request made by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to the European Union. "Its use will be exclusively humanitarian, and will be focused on the evacuation of patients and medical care," adds the aforementioned agency.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, José Manuel Albares, has published this video of the two BMR armored ambulances, in an event in which the Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoréltsev, also participated:

En Herencia, Ciudad Real, he visitado las instalaciones @TECNOVESL, que ha adaptado ambulancias blindadas medicalizadas que España @AECID_es donará a Ucrania.

España seguirá apoyando a Ucrania en su defensa de la paz y libertad tanto tiempo como sea necesario. pic.twitter.com/eKVRaHR45J

— José Manuel Albares (@jmalbares) January 8, 2024

The AECID has published this photo of the two vehicles, both painted white and with red crosses painted, to indicate that they are medical evacuation vehicles protected by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 Russians do not respect hospitals, schools or daycares, so it is unlikely that they will respect these vehicles.

The vehicles will probably be painted green in Ukraine , since with their current image they look good to imply that they are not vehicles for military use, but in Ukraine, as they are, it would be a excellent target for invaders.

Let us remember that Spain already delivered a BMR ambulance to Ukraine at the beginning of the invasion, specifically the only prototype of the BMR VRAC (Rescue Vehicle in Catastrophic Areas), and it was painted green, As you can see on these lines, although it is unknown if it left Spain like this or was painted in Ukraine, since the Spanish government carried out its delivery with great secrecy and without publishing images.

In its Linkedin account, Tecnove has published these two photos of these BMR. These images offer some details about these vehicles. To begin with, they look like prototypes or pre-series vehicles of the BMR that were not updated to the M1 version, and therefore would not come from the BMR fleet that the Army has. One of them has two hydrojets on its back, which gives us a significant clue about its origin.

As @trubia_t pointed out this morning, these two vehicles are probably the which were at the General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) facilities in Alcalá de Guadaíra (Seville), both prototypes or pre-series models. As of August 2011, Google Street View captured these two vehicles in said facilities, one of them painted white and the other with a camouflage in very light colors:

Here we can see one of the BMRs in more detail. This is the version that does not have hydrojets. As we see, it did not have the armor of the M1 version. It is probably the prototype used for the Mobile Emergency Command Post project presented at the Integra 2007 security fair, which appears on page 145 of the book "BMR. Los blindados del Ejército Español" (BMR. The armored vehicles of the Spanish Army, Galland Books, 2008) by José María Manrique García and Luis Molina Franco.

The other vehicle is the one that carries the hydrojets. It is probably a personnel carrier BMR adapted for the Finisterre Project.

In September we already saw this Finisterre Project vehicle here. It appears on the left in this photo, next to the VRAC prototype sent to Ukraine. The photo was published in the aforementioned book by José María Manrique García and Luis Molina Franco. At that time these vehicles were abandoned in Paracuellos de Jarama (Madrid), in a Santa Barbara Sistemas facility, today part of GDLS.

Yesterday, Lanzadigital.com published this video in which we can better see these vehicles and their characteristics:

That newspaper points out that "the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) acquired two 6×6 medium armored vehicles on wheels (BMRs) that had not been put into production previously". Thus, everything indicates that they would be the vehicles photographed by Google in Alcalá de Guadaíra in August 2011.