Richshaws for the 151st, Update 8

Another update on our collection for the 151st Mechanised Brigade, ZSU.

Sadly, it turned out that the total cost for repairs of the KIA Sportage – originally expected to cost UAH 17,000 – have jumped up to UAH 31,100 (€674,91). Reason is that when opening the engine, mechanicians found out that quite a deal of repairs was necessary. Have replaced the ‘turbine’ (this alone cost UAH 10,000), oil filter, manifold gaskets, exhaust pipe, stabilisers, ball bearings, etc.

The other news we’re receiving from the Mortar Battery of the 151^st we’re supporting are usually brief. Indeed, ‘telegraphic’. Between others, they’ve reported three things:

1.)    They need winter tyres for cars, and another charging station (i.e. ‘charger’).

Both is something Anastasiia plans to cover from donations already received. I’ve asked her to be so kind and buy two chargers. Reason is that each takes 1 hour to re-charge, but then holds just 8 hours: with three chargers, the unit would have ’24-hours-coverage’ in regards of re-charging.

Moreover, they’ve mentioned something that’s worrying me.

2.)    Right now, the casualties in the 151^st Mech are evacuated by – between others – the Nissan Navara we’ve purchased back in August, and the Mitsubishi L200 Rickshaw the unit had from earlier times, and you have helped repair with your donations.

By side that this sounds ‘awful’ (even more so considering the approaching winter), but: reasons are manifold.

a) The Russians are – intentionally and systematically – targeting any kind of cars they can recognise as ‘ambulance’, and/or ‘involved in activities related to casualty evacuation’ (CASEVAC).

b) On the battlefield there are no highways: SUVs have better ‘all-terrain’ capability, and thus are moving faster over ‘all terrain’.

c) At least as important is the fact that SUVs are less suspicious: less obvious than ‘standard’, relatively tall ambulance buses.

Correspondingly, I would like to ask you all to be so kind and help us continue this collection. Not only in order to enable Anastasiia to acquire tyres and chargers, but: also with the aim to get a serious CASEVAC-car for the 151^st.

Ideally, this would be something like a SUV-ambulance in style of Nissan Navara with a rear cab, Ford Ranger, or Toyota Land Cruiser. However, even second-hand, fully-equipped vehicles of that kind cost about €50,000-70,000 (then add the transshipment to Ukraine, service, re-painting etc.). Except somebody reading this knows a source from which we could get one cheaper, collecting as much would not only take long (3-4 months), but I’m simply not sure we all (here on the blog) have enough to do so (and I do not want to ask for too much).

Therefore, and after checking the market, the idea is to get something in the class of a second-hand Mercedes Vito: an ambulance car of the size that, after being re-painted, is ‘less obvious’ than the – usually taller – ‘standard’ ambulance cars.

We intend to acquire such a vehicle, bring it to Ukraine, subject it to service and re-painting and, if possible, equip it with anti-UAV-meshes, to make it safer for occupants, too.

The idea is that the casualties would still be extracted by SUVs, but then brought to a point from where it’s (relatively) ‘safe’ to transfer them to a ‘standard’ ambulance car, for further transport to the hospital: the point is that because the Russians are targeting field hospitals too, these were meanwhile all moved well outside the range of their artillery and the mass of their UAVs. Thus, the way is long, and the medical personnel needs a car in which it can stabilise and keep warm the casualty during the transport.

Gauging by what one can currently find on the internet, the cost of such a vehicle is going to be somewhere between €16,000 and 17,000. Add about 1,000 for transshipment and another 1,000 for service, repainting and anti-UAV-meshes: total is 18,000-19,000.

That’s also the next aim of this collection.

In that sense, thanks to your continuous donations, right now we’ve got:

-          US$ 7,197,51 on PayPal, and

-          UAH 39,565,40 on the bank account.

That’s a total of about US$ 8,157,59.

As mentioned above, about UAH 31,000/US$ 752,24 are going to be spent for repairs of the Sportage. Then consider the costs for winter tyres and the re-charger: that’s going to cost at least another UAH 50,000/US$1,213,30.

That’s leaving us with approximately US$5,500-6,000 for the start of collection for the ambulance car: we need about US$15,000 more for this project.

Details for this collection remain as they were, which is as follows:

https://send.monobank.ua/jar/j5TsJjQWg

Bank card number 5375411221843282

Account in USD 5375411221843282

IBAN UA333220010000026200347742354

SWIFT/BIC Code UNJSUAUKXXX

Receiver NAKONECHNA ANASTASIIA

or PayPal: 5266986@gmail.com (Purpose: ‘For Rickshaws’)

Please, be so kind, help us and donate what you can. Every cent counts!