Czech citizens fund ‘killers of Shahed-136’ – 14.5mm guns for Ukraine
PRAHA ($1=23.54 Czech Korunas) — Relentless Russian attacks with loitering munitions on civilian and energy infrastructure caught the Ukrainians off guard. Moscow has long denied buying Iranian Shahed drones, which were involved in these attacks. It subsequently emerged that, in addition to the cash loaded onto the plane, Tehran had also received some Western surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank missiles for testing. Russia was simply forced to admit its lie after Tehran also confirmed the delivery of 160 of its drones.
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The Czech citizens, who have been extremely supportive of the Ukrainians since the beginning of the war, are once again taking matters into their own hands. Nearly US$4 million is set to be raised by the Czechs in the coming days. They will be spent on the purchase of 15 mobile 14.5mm anti-aircraft machine guns to be delivered to Ukraine.
The Czech company “Victor” accepts the idea and made a separate section on its website entitled “Victor – mobile air defense for Ukraine”. The system itself is a simple but effective structure. A 14.5mm anti-aircraft machine gun is mounted on a Toyota Land Cruiser chassis. The ammunition of the module is 300 equipped cartridges and 300 additional ammunition.
The anti-aircraft installation has a day and night sight, and an effective footprint of air targets is possible at a distance of up to 2 km. Victor’s primary task is to combat aerial threats such as Iran’s Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.
Activists of the “Gift for Putin” campaign initiated the idea of anti-aircraft machine gun systems for Ukraine. They previously raised money for the repair and modernization of a T-72 Avenger tank for Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine brought drones to the fore as a key component of modern warfare. Russia did not get off to a good start by using more domestically produced drones. The drone that was supposed to be the flagship of Russian military drone engineering failed miserably on the battlefield. Moscow had to look for other sources of such systems, and Iran responded. In recent weeks, however, an unsuspecting Russian drone has turned into an increasingly powerful and effective weapon – the loitering munition Lancet.
Ukraine, for its part, at the beginning of the war was forced to upgrade drones for civilian use into military drones. Simple devices that released hand grenades into the air became a hit among the Ukrainian army. There are hundreds of videos on social networks of this way of using civilian drones by Ukrainians.
However, this gave them time to start receiving much better quality drones from the Allies. The American flagship of kamikaze drones – the Switchblade series began to show remarkable results against Russian ground combat vehicles. Recently, it became clear that Ukraine will also receive another ammunition – Phoenix Ghost loitering ammunition. Although there is very little detailed information about this drone, the US says it was developed specifically for the needs of Ukraine.
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