Some of Russia’s armed forces have reportedly been reduced to using pickup trucks mounted with machine guns in Ukraine, an attack vehicle popular with jihadi militants in the Middle East.
In a video shared on social media on Monday, a small caravan of six Mitsubishi and Toyota pickup trucks, outfitted with heavy machine guns and marked with the letter “Z,” can be seen reportedly driving around in Mariupol.
The guns mounted in the truck beds could be .50-caliber heavy machine guns that are typically mounted on tanks.
Russia sending in their “IZIZ-style” Mitsubishis and Toyotas into Mariupol.
Is this supposed to be one of the world’s top 5 armies that the collective West is supposed to tremble in front of?
Time for NATO to send those Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine! pic.twitter.com/jCf0vweE0g
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 28, 2022
Machine-gun pickup trucks are closely associated with jihadi terrorist groups fighting in the Middle East and not often with the armies of developed nations.
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The Islamic State has used Toyota Hilux pickups, similar to the Toyota Tacoma sold in the United States, in battles throughout Iraq and Syria. It has also been featured by ISIS in propaganda videos.
When the Taliban rolled into Kabul in August 2021, many of their fighters rode in on pickups modified with gun attachments, photographs showed.
Al Qaeda groups in Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan have also been seen operating these sorts of modified trucks.
The terrorist group Hezbollah has been photographed in Lebanon with pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, much larger than the weapons seen on the pickups in Ukraine.
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Russian armored vehicles in Ukraine have suffered heavy losses since the invasion began on Feb. 24. Many images have been shared on social media reportedly showing Russian tanks and armored vehicles broken down on the side of the road or stuck in the mud.
As of Monday, the Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have destroyed 586 Russian tanks and 1,694 armored personnel vehicles.
