The United States announced the sending of its troops to the border with Mexico for possible actions in this region against local drug cartels. Against this background, the question logically arises of what kind of armed forces Mexico itself has.
In this context, one can single out such an interesting fact – the Mexican Armed Forces have, in particular, a certain number of BTR-60 and BTR-70, and Mi-17 helicopters, and all this equipment was really purchased under confusing circumstances.
The Miitary Balance 2024 directory indicates, in particular, that the Mexican Marines (a total of 21.5 thousand troops) at the beginning of last year had three BTR-60 (local designation APC-60) and 27 BTR-70 (local designation APC-70, and this is all available armored vehicles at the disposal of the Mexican Marines.
In this case, the confusion lies in the country of origin of these armored vehicles: some sources claim that these vehicles were purchased in the 1990s in our country, while others write that the armored personnel carriers were actually purchased in Russia, but at the same time, a mysterious “community on the Irtysh” (the river beyond the Urals – ed.) appears as a specific seller.
But a well-known detail is that these vehicles were delivered to the Mexicans in a demilitarized form, so the Mexican military put weapons on these BTR-60 and BTR-70 on their own.
On the Mi-17 in Mexico, The Miitary Balance 2024 writes about 15 helicopters of this type in the Air Force, four helicopters in the National Guard aviation and 19 helicopters in the Navy. How much of this fleet can really take to the air is currently an open question; in January 2024, Mexico chose the local company Trans-Ce Cargo S.A., which turned out to be associated with Russian defense companies, to repair the vehicles.
In this case, the confusion concerns the circumstances of the acquisition of these helicopters in Russia for Mexico – according to some reports, the first Mi-17s were bought by the Mexicans back in 1996, and that by 2006 this country had several dozen such helicopters; At the same time, there is evidence that in 2013 the Mexican Ministry of Defense ordered the supply of an additional 14 Mi-17 helicopters, but then the total number of purchased machines of this type is not completely clear.
In general terms, the armed forces of Mexico total 216 thousand people, including 157 thousand people in the ground forces, which have up to 1000 armored vehicles of various types (tanks as a type of weapon are absent) and up to 1400 artillery systems of various types.
The Mexican Air Force has only five F-5 Tiger aircraft in combat aviation, instead there are 96 transport aircraft and 100 training aircraft of various types; the total number of Air Force helicopter fleet is 130 units, the Mi-17 accounts for approximately 15% of this number.