『マッドマックス』ばりの車両製造　ウクライナ軍に提供

【キーウＡＦＰ＝時事】角ばったフレームに大きなタイヤ、フロントグリルには鋭い歯の装飾。映画『マッドマックス』を連想させる軽量のバギーは、ロシアによるウクライナ侵攻に対峙（たいじ）し、前線で戦っているウクライナ軍のために製造されたものだ。（写真はウクライナの首都キーウで、バギーを運転するムサさん）
　頑丈で耐久性のあるバギーは、道なき道でも武器や負傷者を迅速に運べる。
　首都キーウでバギー製造を手掛けるのは、ロシアに併合されたクリミア半島出身のムサさん（２９）だ。故郷に住む家族に影響が及ぶ恐れがあるとして、取材には仮名で応じた。
　本職は医師だが、昨年夏、ウクライナ軍にバギーを提供する事業を始めた。軍は車両の購入に寄付金を活用しているという。
　バギーは、独アウディやフォルクスワーゲンなどの中古部品を寄せ集めて組み立てられる。戦場でも簡単に修理できるよう、複雑な電装品などは使っていない。
　本業を一時中断してでもウクライナに貢献したいと考えているムサさんは、クリミアのイスラム系少数民タタール人だ。ロシアに迫害されたタタールの人々は、大多数が併合に反対している。
　ロシア人は「自由を憎んでいる」と、ムサさんは言う。
　■フランケンシュタインのよう
　キーウ郊外にある別の作業場では、医療大隊向けの車両が製造されている。
　プロジェクトを率いるのは、ルーマニア人ボランティアのラドゥ・ホッスさん。活動資金は、ＳＮＳを通じてルーマニアとモルドバの人々から集めている。
　東部ドネツク州の医療大隊支援が目的で、やはりさまざまなパーツを組み合わせて造られる。米フォード製のトラックとロシアのＧＡＺ車の車台が使用された医療車は、砲弾が飛び交う前線から負傷兵を救出する際に使われる予定だ。
　「基本的には（パーツを寄せ集めた）フランケンシュタインのような車。同じ車は地球上に存在しない」と、ホッスさんは言う。
　政治コンサルタントとして働いていたというホッスさんは、プロジェクト名を「オレグ・フバル」と名付けた。病院に向かう途中で死亡したウクライナ兵の名前から採った。個人的にも面識があったという。
　「あの時こんな車両があったら。オレグはまだ生きていたかもしれないとまでは言わないが、生き延びる機会を与えることにはなったと思う」 【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/05/22-17:19）

With angular welded frames, huge wheels and teeth painted on the front grille, the one-off buggies being built to order for Ukrainian forces on the battlefield resemble props from the Mad Max films.
Tough and durable, buggies can speed over the roughest terrain, carrying weapons and the wounded -- and are in demand.
Ukraine faces a challenge to transport its thousands of troops and evacuate the wounded because vehicles on the front line may only last a matter of weeks.
These buggies are made by a company set up by 29-year-old Musa, who asked to use a pseudonym for safety concerns because his family lives in Russian-annexed Crimea.
A doctor by training, he launched the business to help supply Ukrainian battalions, who use public donations to buy them.
At an industrial site in the capital Kyiv, Musa and his team were busy building the frame of a buggy from metal pipes.
He revved up another finished vehicle for a hair-raising ride.
Driving it up and down steps, it accelerated powerfully before braking just as it seemed about to crash into a wall.
The buggies weigh 650 kilos (0.65 tonnes) -- about half the weight of a normal car -- and sell for $6,500 each.
Musa has named the company Dracarys, a nod to the fire-breathing dragons in Game of Thrones.
They have made a few of the vehicles since last summer, he said.
The buggies are assembled from a hodgepodge of engines and other parts from old secondhand cars, such as Audis and Volkswagens, without complicated electronics, making them easy to repair in the field.
These cars, there are so many of them in Ukraine and they're cheap, Musa told AFP.
The buggy he drove has added features such as plastic roll-up side windows to guard against rain and mud and a heater.
Once the finished vehicle is test-driven, it will go to a battalion called Crimea for use in reconnaissance missions.
Musa has given up medicine for now and feels he can help the war effort more through the buggies.
He is a Crimean Tatar, a Muslim group from the peninsula that largely opposed Russia's annexation and has been harshly punished.
Russians hate freedom, he said.
I want to (go) back to my home. I want to meet my family and it's my internal motivation to do this.
- 'Frankenstein vehicle' -
In another workshop in Kyiv's outskirts, mechanics are also at work for the war effort -- on armoured vehicles for medical use.
The project is spearheaded by Romanian volunteer Radu Hossu, who raised funds among Romanians and Moldovans via his Facebook page.
It will provide state-of-the-art transportation for a medical battalion in the war-hit eastern Donetsk region.
Hossu hopes it will then be reproduced more widely.
His team is creating a complex of different-use vehicles to work in tandem, costing around $165,000.
They include a hybrid of a Ford truck and a Soviet Gaz chassis that will become an extraction vehicle to remove wounded soldiers from frontline areas even under fire.
It will be heavily armoured, with huge wheels.
This is basically a Frankenstein vehicle -- it doesn't exist on the planet, Hossu said.
A Polish bus has been rebuilt as a mobile hospital where medics can immediately do complex operations.
Next, a former food truck is being converted into a medics' sleep and wash area.
And a towable boat will be able to evacuate the wounded by water.
Hossu, a former political consultant, has named the project after Oleg Gubal, a Ukrainian soldier who died en route to hospital.
He knew Gubal personally and wants to stop other families experiencing such grief.
If something like this would have existed... I'm not saying Oleg would be alive, but it would have been a chance for him to survive, Hossu said.