Latvia Takes Delivery of Its First ASCOD-Based Hunter Infantry Fighting Vehicle — 84 by 2029, Final Assembly at Valmiera

Melnis said the vehicles would "substantially increase the mobility, protection and firepower of our mechanised units", and that "we are not only buying modern equipment but developing the country's local industrial and technological capabilities". GDELS says the vehicle went from design to tested prototype in 14 months and that a counter-drone concept is being tested on it. Patria Latvia laid the foundation stone for a new assembly and maintenance facility at Valmiera on the same day, at about EUR 8 million including EU funds. Vehicles from the second lot, at more than EUR 9 million each, are due from 2027.

The delivery, which Signal No. 162 carried in its procurement section, came three weeks after Riga chose the Czech Morana howitzer over Sweden's Archer, its other large land purchase this autumn.

Estonia and Latvia read the same war in opposite directions this year: Tallinn cancelled its new infantry fighting vehicles, Riga is taking delivery. In April Estonia cancelled a EUR 500 million CV9035 Mk IV purchase, moved the money to counter-drone, air-defence and unmanned systems, and chose to extend its second-hand CV90s by up to ten years, on its commander's judgement that the role of heavy equipment is decreasing. Riga has kept the vehicle and is testing the counter-drone layer on it, and has tied a maintenance base to 2037 into the purchase. Of the two, Latvia's is the decision that leaves an industrial asset behind whichever reading of the war proves right. Whether the counter-drone concept becomes a contracted fit before the second lot arrives will show whether Riga has answered Tallinn's argument or only deferred it.