Turkey Delivers Its Own ‘HIMARS’ To Ukraine; Can Wreak Havoc In Tandem With Bayraktar TB-2 Drones

The MRLS is supposed to work more effectively when combined with the TB- 2 Bayraktar drones to identify, coordinate and engage its rocket ordnance fire on ground targets.

Neither Turkey nor Ukraine has officially verified using the rocket platform. still, grounded on the number of times the clip was participated and established websites reporting the development leaves little room for mistrustfulness

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also, the delivery of the TRLG- 230 to Ukraine was reported by well- known open- source intelligence( OSINT), arms analysis, and tracking portal Oryx on November 21.The short eight-alternate clip could thus be the first videotape of the factual combat use of the recently developed Turkish defense major Roketsan.Middle East Eye reported on Wednesday that 50 TRLG- 230 dumdums have been packed to Ukraine and quoted other unnamed sources that put the figure at 200.

Interestingly, the rocket cover is mounted on a truck lattice combat made by KAMAZ, the leading Russian heavy vehicle manufacturer.The cover has six 230- mm guided rockets, with a blasting range between 20 to 70 kilometers, in variants with a satellite andsemi-active ray guidance. Whether Ukraine has both variants or only one of them isn’t yet clear.

n only strike up to four targets but has a 24- hour abidance and a 75- kilometer range Electro- Optical/ Infrared( EO/ IR) system, which the 230 mm TRLG- 230 exploits, according to Oryx.Footage released by the Azerbaijani service last time revealed that Baku had used TRLG- 230s in the 2020 conflict in Nagorno- Karabakh, which also saw the TB- 2’s rise to fame.

The TB- 2 originally scored massive politic successes striking Russian targets with its MAM- L air- to- ground bullet( AGM) but was latterly shot down in large figures as Russian air defense fleetly evolved.

This had resolve AFU inferior officers, dogfaces, and the elderly general staff as the ultimate wanted to continue their use despite their adding vulnerability to advanced Russian electronic warfare( EW) and face- to- air dumdums( SAM).The TB- 2 reportedly transitioned to long- range Intelligence- Surveillance- Surveillance( ISR) and EW operations.

crazy Russian- Turkish TiesThe development also highlights the complicated – and frequently crazy – Russo- Turkish relations considered one of the trickiest in the politic world.While thick in terms of marketable, civil nuclear cooperation and realistic collaboration of their positions on critical issues, it’s marked by swings of Turkish strategic competition where Ankara contemporaneously acts directly against Russian interests.

Turkey and Russia are on contrary sides in the conflicts in South Caucasus( Armenia- Azerbaijan), the Syrian and Libyan civil wars, and Ukraine. At the same time, the two countries entered into sanctioned deals like the four- party Black Sea Grain Initiative with Russia, Ukraine, United Nations( UN), and Turkey itself.The agreement allows grain exports from Russian- controlled anchorages in Crimea and the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorous and Dardanelles woe that Turkey controls under the Montreaux Convention.

It originally intermediated between Ukraine and Russia at the Antalya Forum in early March while officially supplying Bayraktar TB- 2 drones to the Armed Forces of Ukraine( AFU).t has a deconfliction medium with Russia and Iran in Syria under the Astana Process. Turkey has allegedly supported revolutionist groups like the Hayat Tahrir al- Shams( HTS) and rudiments of the Islamic State( IS or Daesh) that oppose the Bashar al- Assad governance, backed by Iran and Russia.

Turkey- Ukraine Defense Ties & Russian influenceTurkey and Ukraine have a robust defense cooperation, where Ukrainian aero- machine major Motor Sich manufactured the machines for the TB- 2s.Motor Sich also won an order to give factors for 30 AI- 450T machines that power Turkey’s advanced Akinci drone. A March 2021 Daily Sabah report also claimed Turkey’s heavy 11- ton- class attack copter, the ATAK- 2, will use a Motor Sich powerplant.

But by late October, the burgeoning defense ties were hovered by Baykar’s disinclination to go ahead with a preliminarily agreed plan to set up a drone manufacturing installation in Ukraine using Motor Sich’s artificial base. EurAsian Times had reported that this could have redounded from two significant developments.

One, Ukrainian sanctioned Serhiy Pashinsky admitted in an online sting operation about the vulnerability of the TB- 2s, which touched off a Twitter counterreaction from Baykar CEO Haluk Bayraktar. Secondly, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to supply gas through the TurkStream channel beneath the Black Sea, making Turkey a “ gas mecca. ”

Baykar’s Chief Technology Officer( CTO) Selcuk Bayraktar is Erdogan’s son- in- law, which, along with the gas offer, is concluded to have played a part in putting the thickets on Baykar’s Ukraine drone plant plans.This isn’t the first time Russia has used itseco-political influence on Turkey, whenever it went against its interests in Syria and Libya or applied how the US frequently courts Ankara against Moscow.

It preliminarily confined the inflow of Russian excursionists to the notorious Antalya region, reduced fruit significances from Turkey, and applied the possible impact on Rosatom’s construction of the Akkuyu civil nuclear power factory.The West has traditionally cultivated Turkey as a frontline ‘ swing state ’ to challenge Russia, with Ankara frequently playing both sides to achieve its geopolitical points.