A characteristic of this war was the swift delivery of a considerable amount of equipment from the Ukraine to Macedonia. The cooperation between the two countries was established already in 1999, when a treaty about military cooperation was signed. The good mutual relationship was deepened through a series of meetings between top officials during the following years, and was eventually to culminate in 2002, when the Ukrainians established a tank-servicing centre in Macedonia. Under international pressure the Ukraine subsequently officially stopped military cooperation, but by the time the ARM was so well equipped it was barely in condition to support all the newly-acquired hardware.
hat made the Ukrainian equipment interesting for Skopje was obviously that additional “service” Kiev was offering. The Ukrainians not only supplied additional aircraft and helicopters - and plenty of ammunition – as fast as they could, but were also extremely swift to organize and complete the training of Macedonian crews – and then added a full complement of mobile workshops and support equipment (supposedly at no charge!) and a wide selection of weapons as well. Of course, the equipment was supplied together with a number of “advisors”, which were contracted to fly the helicopters and aircraft to Macedonia and then to also take care about its proper maintenance and training of VViPVO crews in country for periods between six and 12 months. Interestingly, the Ukrainians flew only a very small number of combat sorties on VViPVO helicopters and Sukhois: most of the time they have left the fighting to the Macedonians. Despite the much claimed Slavic brotherhood, the Ukrainians were not only far more interested in collecting their pay than getting killed in a fight against the Albanians. Otherwise, they definitely provided the “full service” for their Macedonian customers: after all, such operations were nothing new to the Ukrainians, then they provided a similar type of service for Sri Lanka and Eritrea in the late 1990s
Aside from the Ukraine the Macedonian government was bolstering the ARM by arms acquisitions from other sources as well. One of these was Croatia, which previously was supplying weapons to Albanians. In April 2001 an agreement for arms and ammunition was reached with Croatian company RH Alan, worth $16 million, and two chartered Ukrainian Ilushin Il-76 transports were used to fly in the weapons from Pula, in Croatia, to Macedonia: local media reported a total of 15 nocturnal flights. The third main weapons supplier became Bulgaria, which was foremost donating heavy weapons, like T-55 tanks, and APCs. The Ukraine remained most important: by September 2001 in several additional agreements, the Macedonians have sent 30 T-55s to the Ukraine for refurbishment, while purchasing 31 T-72 tanks in addition to trucks, off-road vehicles, more artillery pieces, radars and numerous other items. Simultaneously, four additional Mi-24Vs were acquired as well, followed by two Mi-24K reconnaissance helicopters, delivered in December. By the end of the year the VViPVO thus had a total of 12 Mi-24Vs, two Mi-24Ks, six Mi-8Ts, three Mi-17-1Vs, four Bell UH-1s, and three Zlin 242Ls in service, while four additional Mi-24Vs were on order.
