Ukraine [may] have launched mass production of the Kontakt-1 dynamic defense system
According to the OSINT account Ukraine Weapons Tracker, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex has launched mass production of the Kontakt-1 dynamic protection system, which is widely used in domestic armored vehicles.
Since the beginning of the hot phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the dynamic Kontact-1 defense, along with the Armed Forces florks, has become the “hero” of numerous Internet memes, in which florks try to add Kontact-1 to any military and not only military equipment. There is some truth in every meme, and Ukrainian weapon makers do indeed use the Kontakt-1 widely, even attaching it to Western equipment such as BMPs M2 Bradley or tanks Leopard 1.
The Kontakt-1 dynamic defense systems are a Soviet/Russian development, so in 2018, Ukrainian counterparts 4C20 and 4C22 (Kontakt-5) were developed to replace the Soviet elements.
However, the photos posted by Ukraine Weapons Tracker do not show 4C20Us, but 4C20s produced in 2023. Ukraine Weapons Tracker insists that these are Ukrainian production systems, not trophy systems.
It is interesting why, in this case, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex did not immediately start the production of more modern and effective dynamic defense systems “Knife” and “Duplet”, which are Ukrainian developments and were adopted in 2003 and 2009, respectively.