Ecuador will transfer Soviet-era weapons to the United States

Ecuador and the United States agreed to exchange Soviet weapons for modern models. It was announced in an interview with Canela Radio by the President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa. In a radio interview, the president noted that there was an agreement between the countries to exchange the weapons called "scrap" of Soviet models worth £200 million for modern equipment.

The agreement is due to be completed by the end of January this year. Noboa said that the exchange of equipment was only a part of the aid that the United States would provide to the country. According to him, the day before he held a meeting with the American ambassador Michael Fitzpatrick, who said that "in two to three days the United States will present to Ecuador a separate aid package."

The President of Ecuador did not specify the planned nomenclature for transferring of weapons and for what purpose the United States receives it.

Arsenal of Ecuador

Nowadays Ecuador remains an active operator of Soviet-made weapons and systems, as well as ammunition manufactured during the existence of the USSR or in the modern Russian Federation. We are talking about heavy weapons, such as RPG-7 grenade launchers and AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers. The rocket artillery is represented by 15 Czechoslovak RM-70 122mm MRL.

The country owns a wide range of Soviet anti-aircraft weapons, in particular, more than a hundred ZPU-1/2/4 anti-aircraft machine guns, dozens of ZU-23-2 automatic guns, more than two hundred Igla and Strela-2 MANPADS. In service with ground forces and air forces are 12 9K33 Osa-AKM SAM, which were acquired at one time in Ukraine.

In addition, the country's ground forces own up to a dozen active Mi-17-1V military transport helicopters. It is also worth noting that Ecuador has other weapons in service, which are in demand today in the global arms market.

For example, we are talking about air defense equipment such as the Swedish Bofors M1 40mm towed anti-aircraft guns, the M163 VADS towed and self-propelled 20mm six-barrel anti-aircraft gun, French Mistral MANPADS.