Ukrtransnafta transfers pickups with turrets to the National Guard of Ukraine

5 February, 2025 Pickup trucks with turrets of the National Guard. January 2025, Ukraine. Source: Ukrtransnafta and the Northern Command of the National Guard of Ukraine

JSC Ukrtransnafta has transferred pickup trucks with turrets to the National Guard soldiers from Zhytomyr. JSC Ukrtransnafta shared that the batch included 10 pickup trucks equipped with turrets. These vehicles will reinforce mobile firing groups to ensure the region's air defense.

The turret will be equipped with large-caliber machine guns to shoot down Russian attack drones. "Every such assistance makes us stronger and brings us closer to victory," Colonel Oleksii Melnyk, commander of the 3047th military unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, noted.

Pickup trucks with turrets of the National Guard. January 2025, Ukraine.

Source: Ukrtransnafta and the Northern Command of the National Guard of Ukraine

Constant launches of ballistic and cruise missiles, barrage munitions, and air target simulators are depleting the Ukrainian air defense system. Ukraine is able to use its Soviet-era and Western air-to-ground missile systems against these targets. However, the Tor, Buk, S-125, S-300, IRIS-T, NASAMS, PATRIOT, SAMP/T, HAWK, and other systems have too few missiles to spend on drones.

To solve this problem, since the spring of 2022, mobile air defense teams have been created in Ukraine to quickly strengthen air defense.

Pickup trucks of Ukrainian mobile air defense teams. Photo credits: Armed Forces of Ukraine

For this purpose, they chose off-road vehicles with turrets, on which they started to install large-caliber machine guns and air defense systems. To solve the problem of the lack of special mechanical sighting devices, anti-aircraft sights were added to the machine guns in workshops and mounted on pickup trucks.

The teams were staffed by soldiers with conventional small arms and man-portable air defense systems.