Italy Empties the Garage: 400 M113s Headed to Ukraine
A Blast from the Past
It finally happened. Italy just cleaned out its Cold War garage and sent Ukraine the keys.
On May 17, 2025, Rome announced its 11th military aid package to Ukraine, headlined by 400 M113 armored personnel carriers and an unspecified satellite surveillance system. For those keeping score, this is the same M113 I tore into in 2022 for being a thinly armored relic better suited to museum duty than modern warfare.
And yet, here we are: 400 more aluminum boxes on tracks are heading to the front lines.
But here's the twist: if Ukraine uses these things the right way, read: not as tanks, they could actually be a huge help.
The M113: Half Personnel Carrier, Half Rolling Target
If you gave a toaster treads and told it to carry troops, you’d basically have the M113. It’s a product of a different era, back when aluminum armor seemed like a genius idea and the notion of improvised explosive devices was still decades away.
The M113 was never meant to win beauty contests, but it’s not trying to be sleek. It’s trying not to get blown up while delivering 11 grunts to the edge of a battlefield, and even that, it only sort of does well.
Structurally, the M113 is a box. No sloped armor, no modular protection kits, no defensive aids suite to speak of. No smoke grenade launchers or active protection systems (unless retrofitted). It’s as bare bones as it gets: aluminum plates bolted together around a diesel engine and some bench seating.
Inside? It’s claustrophobic, loud, and vibrates like a washing machine with a brick in it.
Communications are basic.
Comfort is non-existent.
Visibility is poor.
There's no escape hatch in the floor like modern APCs, so if the thing tips over or catches fire, you better hope the rear ramp hasn’t jammed.
Tactically, the biggest sin of the M113 is that it tempts commanders into misusing it. On paper, it looks like a mini tank. It’s tracked. It has a big machine gun. It’s “armored”. But put it in the same zip code as an anti-tank missile, and you’ll be picking up what’s left with a shop vac.
Its aluminum shell was revolutionary in the ‘60s, but today, it’s about as reassuring as a soda can.
Yet, the paradox is that militaries keep finding ways to use it.
Its simplicity makes it ideal for modifications. Stick a mortar in the back, and you’ve got indirect fire. Throw in a stretcher rack, and it’s an ambulance. Rip the roof off and mount a UAV launcher. The M113’s legacy isn’t just that it’s old, it’s that it’s modular. And in a military like Ukraine’s, constantly adapting and constantly innovating, that modularity is actually a superpower.
Still, let’s not sugarcoat it. Against the kind of artillery saturation and drone precision strikes that define today’s battlefields, the M113 has all the survivability of a Fiat Panda in a monster truck rally.
One direct hit, and it’s game over. That’s why doctrine matters. That’s why restraint matters.
If the M113 is the cheap ride to the war party, don’t ask it to stay for the fireworks.
How We Got Here: NATO’s Shrinking Inventory and Ukraine’s Expanding Needs
The current influx of Cold War-era M113s into Ukraine is not just a logistical decision, it's a symptom of a deeper strategic mismatch between what Ukraine desperately needs and what NATO actually has left to give.
Let’s rewind. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, most Western nations were caught flat-footed in terms of warfighting logistics. They had spent the last two decades preparing for counterinsurgency ops in deserts, not slugfests in the Donbas.
Heavy armor stockpiles had been trimmed, precision munitions hoarded in limited numbers, and aging platforms like the M113 had been mothballed, sold off, or left to quietly rust in depots from Kansas to Calabria.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s battlefield appetite only grew. What started as a scrappy resistance with Saint Javelin quickly evolved into a full-spectrum military effort requiring tanks, IFVs, air defense, and the one thing NATO’s war planners never expected to run out of: basic armored mobility. Getting thousands of troops across minefields, into ruined cities, and out of artillery kill zones demanded a scale of logistics NATO hadn't had to think about since the Balkans, or arguably the Cold War.
This created a pressure cooker scenario. Ukraine needed armor. Western nations were reluctant to send their newest toys. Enter the M113, stage left, wearing its vintage Vietnam flak jacket and that faint smell of JP-8 and WD-40.
It wasn't glamorous, but it was available. And in a political climate where sending brand-new AMPV fleets or CV90s could raise eyebrows in parliaments and budget committees, dumping 60-year-old aluminum boxes on tracks was a far easier sell.
The irony here is that the M113 wasn’t Ukraine’s first choice; it was NATO’s least inconvenient option. Countries like Italy, Germany, and Portugal opened their mothballed inventories not necessarily because they believed in the platform, but because they had little else to offer that could be shipped fast and in quantity without compromising their own readiness.
It’s the strategic equivalent of clearing out your garage because your neighbor needs a lawnmower. Don’t get me wrong! What Italy and others have done is beyond generous. And Ukraine is the perfect country to take old war machines and invent new, deadly remixes.
So, how did we get here? A mix of underinvestment, short war expectations, and peacetime complacency from NATO. Ukraine’s needs are growing faster than Western military production lines can ramp up. And in the interim, it’s getting by with armor that's far older than most of its soldiers.
The M113s are rolling because they’re available. Not because they’re ideal. But for now, in a war fought as much with improvisation as with firepower, they’re a stopgap Ukraine can’t afford to ignore.
The Right Tool for the Right Job
Let’s get something out of the way: the M113 is not a frontline killer. It’s not an IFV, it’s not going toe-to-toe with T-90s, and it’s certainly not going to shrug off a Kornet missile with some Cold War swagger. But if Ukraine uses it for what it was designed to do, getting troops from Point A to Point B without them catching shrapnel, it can be not just useful, but operationally vital.
Think of the M113 as the battlefield equivalent of a U-Haul. You don’t drive a U-Haul into a firefight. You park it just close enough to drop off the gear and the grunts, and then you haul ass back to safety.
That’s where the M113 excels. It moves people. It moves supplies. It evacuates the wounded. And in a 1,200-mile war where front lines shift daily and artillery still rules the earth, battlefield mobility saves lives—full stop.
More importantly, Ukraine’s generals know how to stretch a capability until it screams. In past offensives, M113s were used not just to deliver infantry, but to tow ammunition pallets, relocate drones and EW units, even ferry fuel to forward armor units when logistics got hairy.
That’s exactly how you use this platform, not as a hero, but as the quiet workhorse behind the breakthrough.
In the right terrain, flat, open steppe, rolling fields, rear-line operations, the M113’s speed and simplicity are assets. It doesn’t need delicate electronics or a million-dollar fire control system to function. It just starts, rolls, drops off soldiers, and repeats. And when your other option is a civilian van or an open-bed truck with zero armor, suddenly the M113 starts to look less like a relic and more like a godsend.
Plus, Ukrainian soldiers have told me that the big, flashy APCs magically attract Russian drones like flies to manure. The M113 is arguably so ugly that most Russian drone operators would likely save their shot for a juicier target.
A wrecked Australian Bushmaster would make headlines. A wrecked M113? Well, that’s just Fort Benning on a Tuesday.
There’s also the “saturate to survive” tactic at play. Ukraine is fighting a war of quantity as well as quality. If one M113 gets smoked by a Lancet drone, but four others successfully move 40 soldiers to a tree line just ahead of a Russian breakthrough, that’s a trade most Ukrainian commanders will make every day of the week.
Especially when those 40 soldiers now have a fighting chance to counterattack or entrench.
So yes, the M113 is old. It’s boxy, loud, and as subtle as a Trump parade in Washington D.C. But used correctly, behind the front lines, in support roles, as a logistics and mobility asset, it does the one thing Ukraine needs most from its aging Western hand-me-downs: it works. And sometimes, in war, working is all that matters.
A Satellite Surprise: Italy Adds Eyes in the Sky
Buried beneath the headlines about Italy’s donation of 400 M113s was a detail that didn’t get nearly the attention it deserves: Rome is also giving Ukraine a satellite surveillance system. And in many ways, this could be the most strategically valuable piece of the entire aid package.
Make no mistake. In modern warfare, whoever sees first (usually) wins. From artillery to HIMARS to drone strikes, targeting data is the linchpin of lethality. So, when Italy decided to tack on satellite support to its ground-based donations, it wasn’t just tossing in a bonus. It was handing Ukraine a combat amplifier, something that helps every other weapon system in its arsenal work better, faster, and with deadlier precision.
We don’t yet know the full technical specs of what Italy’s providing, but if it’s anything like the COSMO-SkyMed system, Italy’s crown jewel of orbital ISR capability, Ukraine just inherited a pair of very sharp orbital eyes. COSMO-SkyMed is a constellation of high-resolution radar imaging satellites that can see through clouds, operate at night, and revisit targets multiple times a day.
That’s not just useful for finding tanks in the Donbas. It’s critical for tracking Russian S-300 launchers, observing logistics lines, and identifying new airstrip construction in Belarus or occupied Crimea.
More importantly, COSMO-SkyMed or its equivalent doesn’t only snap pictures. It can be integrated into existing command and control networks. Ukraine’s targeting infrastructure, much of which already runs on NATO-compatible systems, could plug into Italian satellite feeds the same way it syncs with American or commercial imagery from Maxar or Planet Labs. This means faster kill chains. Fewer missed targets. And an edge in a war where delay often equals destruction.
But here’s where it gets geopolitical. This satellite system is also a signal, literally and figuratively. Italy is saying, “We’re not just cleaning out the garage with these old M113s. We’re investing in capabilities that match the demands of this war’s next phase.”
And it’s doing so at a time when US support is wobbling under the Trump administration’s renewed focus on negotiation over escalation (despite the fact that the shirtless equine aficionado Putin will never negotiate in good faith.)
Look, Italy stepping up to provide strategic ISR isn’t just generous.
It’s smart. It fills a critical gap that’s widening as the West debates how far it’s willing to go. Satellite imagery gives Ukraine the ability to independently verify Russian force movements, monitor Belarusian staging areas, and preempt new missile or drone attacks from occupied territory, all without having to wait for Washington or Berlin to pass along the data. Combine this with Japan’s recent SAR satellite gift, Sweden’s recent AWACS donation, and Finland’s satellite assistance, and Ukraine’s eyes in the sky are getting sharper every day.
Even more than tanks or missiles, this kind of intelligence flow enables strategic autonomy. Ukraine becomes less reactive, more proactive, and better able to plan large-scale operations with confidence. Whether it’s preparing a counteroffensive or simply knowing when to reposition air defenses, accurate overhead surveillance changes the game.
So yes, the M113s are easy to photograph and easy to count. They look good in a press release.
But the satellite system? That’s the quiet ace up Italy’s sleeve. The one that won’t show up in viral war footage, but might just shape the next chapter of this conflict from 500 kilometers above the battlefield.
Okay, back to the M113
Where does a tracked aluminum personnel box, designed when Elvis was still topping the charts, actually fit in this kind of environment?
The answer: in very specific, non-glamorous, but absolutely essential roles.
If Ukraine gets creative, and they usually do, some of these 400 Italian M113s might find themselves turned into battlefield specialty variants.
Need a mobile electronic warfare platform? Strip out the benches, bolt in an antenna array, and start jamming Russian drones.
Want a poor man’s mortar carrier? Drop a 120mm tube in the back and start laying down indirect fire from a defilade.
Ukraine has already shown a talent for this kind of modular improvisation, turning Soviet-era tractors into mobile SAM platforms. An M113’s flat roof and boxy interior are practically begging for reinvention.
So no, the M113 does not “dominate the 2025 battlefield.” But when deployed smartly, behind the line, supporting the fight rather than absorbing it, it can still help Ukraine wage a 21st-century war with 20th-century hardware.
In that sense, it’s less a relic and more a “recycled resource”, just waiting for a clever Ukrainian wrench to turn it into something lethal. Or at least useful. And in this war, that’s more than enough.
Italy’s aid package shows both pragmatism and generosity. They’re unloading legacy platforms to make room for modern ones under the A2CS program, while giving Ukraine exactly what it needs to sustain a long war: mobility, eyes in the sky, and a truckload of logistical flexibility.
Are M113s ideal? No. Are they survivable against Russian tanks or Lancet drones? Not really. But if Ukraine uses them the way they were meant to be used, behind the front lines, not on them, they may prove to be the unsung backbone of a military stretched thin.
The war’s not ending tomorrow. And until Gripens, AMPVs, or something shinier shows up in bulk, Ukraine needs every asset it can get. Even if that asset was designed the same year America launched its first satellite.
Welcome back to the front, M113. Just don’t forget who you are.
Слава Україні!
As always, highly insightful analysis! And well written.
About the same as the Swedish donation of around 200 of the lightly armored pvb 302. Excellent in terrain and for transport. But today, not even tanks are optimal on the front.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansarbandvagn_302