The Moldovan Armed Forces is one of the most elusive fighting forces in Europe. As the poorest country on the European continent, Moldova has the dubious honour of not having made one acquisition for its military since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Instead, it has been the recipient of military aid from Romania in the 1990s and the United States throughout the 2000s and 2010s, and has in recent years attempted to improve the fighting efficacy of its forces by launching a number of upgrade projects for its armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs).

 

A number of attacks on Turkish patrols in northern Syria have brought Turkey and YPG forces to the brink of war. In response to the latest attack, which saw the death of one Turkish soldier, President Erdogan vowed to clear northern Syria from the YPG. [1] In order to achieve this, YPG (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel – People's Protection Units, itself the primary faction in the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance) forces would either have to leave the border region voluntarily or take up arms and fight the Free Syrian Army and Turkish military. In the latter case, the YPG's armour is undoubtedly set to play a role as the faction's primary fire-support platforms. This article attempts to catalogue the YPG's fleet of AFVs and other heavy weaponry and explain how its armoured force came to be.

 

The goal of this list is to comprehensively catalogue Mali's current and past inventory of (armoured fighting) vehicles and heavy weaponry. Historically a major recipient of Soviet military aid, frequent arms deliveries in the 1970s and 1980s turned Mali into one of the strongest militaries in western Africa, operating advanced equipment such as dedicated tank destroyers, S-125 SAM systems and MiG-21bis jet fighters. The 1990s and 2000s saw the Malian Army retiring much of this equipment amid a changed security situation and resulting decrease in its defence expenditure.

 

Like most other African militaries, the Malian Army's combat effectiveness in the late 2000s and early 2010s was extremely low, a fact that prevented it from dealing with the 2012 Tuareg insurgency and the subsequent rise of Al-Qaeda, ultimately forcing France to intervene to prevent a hostile takeover of Mali and throwing the rest of the region into turmoil. In the years since, the Malian military has been rebuild with the help of the European Union (EU), with Soviet heavy weaponry making place for modern MRAPs and infantry mobility vehicles. 

Nonetheless, Mali continues to operate equipment like the T-54 and PT-76, albeit in much small numbers than before. Interestingly, the Malian Army appears to have returned several other Soviet-era AFVs back to operational condition in recent years, although these appear to spend most of their time collecting dust in barracks with little training being undertaken as they are of little use in fighting the ongoing insurgency. Nonetheless, the ultimate result is an exotic inventory of equipment that could surprise many seasoned analyst for its sheer diversity.