It's best to buy body armor within Ukraine. Doing so supports their domestic industry and avoids the need to ship it into the country, which is both expensive and time consuming.

• Soft armor
  • covers most of the body, can stop small shrapnel and prevent cuts from terrain and equipment
• Plate carriers
  • holds replaceable ballistic plates
• Ballistic plates
  • hard plate that can stop bullets and larger shrapnel
• Helmets
• Eye protection

• What: Motorola MOTOTRBO R7
  • Full key pad version is great but it's significantly more expensive. If you have the option, it's better to buy more of the no keypad versions at a lower price.
  • Don't purchase an encryption license. In order to activate the AES-256 encryption feature a license needs to be purchased and applied. That can be done in Ukraine so don't worry about it, it only matters that it's capable of encryption.
• Where: Find a local Motorola radio dealer.
• Price: $1,250 (no keypad), $1,450 (full keypad)

• What: Motorola MOTOTRBO DP4400/DP4401/DP4400e
  • Don't purchase an encryption license. In order to activate the AES-256 encryption feature a license needs to be purchased and applied. That can be done in Ukraine so don't worry about it, it only matters that it's capable of encryption.
• Where: eBay
  • These are discontinued, replaced by the R7 series, so they must be found second hand.
• Price: $450