Venezuela refurbishes legacy vehicles to maintain army capabilities
Venezuela's Scorpion 90s are being progressively overhauled. (Photo: Venezuelan MoD)
Starved of funding, the Venezuelan Army is repairing and refurbishing obsolete Western-supplied vehicle fleets to maintain a meaningful capability.
The Venezuelan Army participated in high-profile parades on 24 June and 5 July to demonstrate not only the strength of the armed forces, but also their apparent ingenuity. After spending billions of dollars during the Hugo Chávez years on Russian defence technology, international sanctions and an ongoing economic crisis mean that Caracas can no longer afford state-of-the-art military equipment to sustain its armed forces. As a consequence, the army is repairing and refurbishing old vehicles and equipment, obtained in the pre-Chávez years, to expand its arsenal and maintain deterrence capabilities.
The equipment that participated in the parades included AMX-13 and
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