‘Common Protected Vehicle System’ Initiative Announced By Finland & Latvia

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Some exciting and intriguing news coming  from Finland and Latvia as the two countries jointly announced the signing of an agreement to  develop a “Common Protected Vehicle” (CPV) System.

[00:00:11]While the official press release is light on  details, let’s go over what was announced and consider what this cooperation could look like. ————— And so the multinational initiative was kicked  off in Tampere, Finland on May 28th 2026 and followed the signing of a “Technical Arrangement  in Co-operation” concerning Joint Procurement of Mobile Systems and Technologies, which was  signed by the two nations the day prior.

[00:00:38]It’s noted that the arrangement also  enables future serial procurement.

[00:00:43]The press release from the Finnish military’s  logistics division says that the joint development of a Common Protected Vehicle system between  Finland and Latvia will include protected off-road trucks, tactical vehicles and  tracked transport vehicles. It ends by saying that development will initially  focus on a protected off-road truck.

[00:01:00]—————- So that’s really all the official information that was presented! It’s  unfortunately not much concrete or detailed info.

[00:01:08]At the same time, it IS more than enough  information for us to start an in depth discussion on what this program could look  like, and boy do we have a lot to discuss!

[00:01:17]——————- First off, we have to make it absolutely clear that no design  or vehicle maker/production company was mentioned.

[00:01:24]All of the footage you’ve seen thus far  is from Finnish company Sisu Auto and is, for now, just a visual representation  of what CPV products could look like.

[00:01:35]One YouTube commenter, discussing this  news, says that this program involves the Sisu GTP and GTT. But again, it’s a random  YouTube comment- so nothing authoritative.

[00:01:46]At the same time, looking at these Sisu  vehicles, they do essentially line up with the press release’s mention of  quote “protected off-road trucks, tactical vehicles and tracked transport vehicles.” At the very least, it gives something for you to watch in this YouTube video! —————- We tried to find other media outlets commenting  on this news but at least for now, when we’re writing OUR script and doing this research,  there’s nothing more than the press release.

[00:02:13]But this exciting news reminds us greatly  of another initiative previously kicked off between Finland and Latvia about  6 years ago. Do you know what it is?

[00:02:22]It’s Patria’s common armored vehicle  system (CAVS) program! Yes, that’s right, the program that now sees at least 7 nations  participating all began with Finland and Latvia.

[00:02:35]At least to us, it feels like CPV is moving  ahead due to the success of CAVS- a program that is now likely to see more than 2000 Patria  6x6 armored vehicles ordered, with production taking place across no less than 3 nations. Latvia, being the very first CAVS partner outside of Finland, was the first  to establish a Patria 6x6 assembly facility outside of the Nordic nation. This facility, located in Valmeira, Latvia, has a theoretical max output  of 160 6x6 vehicles per year. And we should make clear that it’s NOT just assembly in  Latvia, as local partners have been secured to actually manufacture parts of the 6x6 as well. And so based on what we’ve seen with the CAVS program, we can imagine Latvia also establishing  its own vehicle production facilities alongside Finnish production lines. We can also imagine this  program being extended/offered to other nations, allowing for a stronger supply chain, faster  production, and lower costs due to economies of scale. ——————- While we again don’t know if Sisu will be  the company at the center of this program, it would be a comical outcome considering Latvia’s  failed tactical 4x4 procurement back in 2018.

[00:03:50]You see, it was back in December of that year  that Sisu and its GTP had been declared the winner in a tender to supply armored vehicles to  Latvia’s national armed forces for €200 million.

[00:04:01]As we reported in one of our first videos as a  YouTube channel, The National Armed Forces and the procurement committee tested the several vehicles: The GTP 4x4 offered by Sisu Auto, The Humvee offered by the U.S. company AM General The Marauder by South Africa’s Paramount Group And the Cobra from Turkish company Otokar ———— As we see over and over and over again  in the world of defence procurement- some of the losing companies filed formal  complaints about the selection process.

[00:04:31]Indeed, It was reported that South Africa’s  Paramount International Marketing and US company AM General lodged complaints  with the Public Procurement Monitoring Bureau about the outcome of the tender. A month later, in January 2019, the procurement would be halted as Latvia’s Defense Ministry was  banned from signing an agreement with the winner.

[00:04:51]According to Latvia’s procurement watchdog,  the Defense Ministry had committed a number of violations in the procurement procedure,  failing to fully reflect its needs in documentation and amending tender requirements. In particular it was said that there were methodological discrepancies into how the  Defense Ministry chose the winning vehicles.

[00:05:10]The Defense Ministry was given three months  to eliminate shortcomings and repeat the evaluation of all bids but this doesn’t  appear to have taken place and the whole program essentially just died by early 2019. And so, in an alternate universe/alternate timeline, Latvia’s armed forces would be operating  Sisu GTP vehicles by now! But, well, maybe it will have this opportunity again in the future! —————- Now, trying to connect all the dots, we have to  wonder if this new CPV initiative will impact Latvian company VR Fox and its hopes of supplying  tactical 4x4 vehicles to Latvias armed forces.

[00:05:47]We know that the company will supply 30  of these light tactical vehicles to the military and it hopes to supply even more  vehicles in the future- offering heavier, better-protected variants complete with doors! Does CPV essentially eliminate VR’s hopes if VR isn’t involved in CPV? We would imagine so. At the same time, it would make sense for the Latvian government to INCLUDE  local companies like VR in the CPV program as a local partner and supplier. And so if it works out like this then it wouldn’t be a TOTAL loss for VR. —————— If you’re still watching then you’ll see  that A LOT of this video is speculation based on what we’ve seen with Latvia’s  early involvement in the CAVS program, and so it will be very interesting to see how  accurate this video turns out to be in the next few years! We were right in suggesting the Patria  6x6 would replace Lithuania’s M113s after all! We also had a feeling that Sweden would choose the  French FDI for its Luleå class program, although we never announced this prediction publicly! But it really would be great to see multinational initiatives like CAVS, and hopefully  CPV flourish and grow across Europe.

[00:06:59]Allied procurement has been quite scattered  with each nation mostly doing their own thing.

[00:07:04]CAVS and an upcoming multinational  CV90 order have gone a long way in shaking things up and getting different  countries on the same page, and so taking things further with CPV would be great to see. Could vehicles from this program one day be as common as the Mercedes G-Wagen across Europe’s  militaries? We’ll just have to wait and see!

[00:07:25]But what do YOU think of all this? Are we going  too far in our speculation and analysis? Or does CPV really have the potential to be the next CAVS?  Let us know what you think by leaving a comment!

[00:07:38]And our sincere Thanks to the community for  letting us know about this news! Within hours of it going public we had a message on  Instagram, a post on our discord server, and a few YouTube comments notifying us!  Keep up the great work and feel free to contact us if you see big developments that  we might have missed! See you next time!