System D sometimes gives astonishing results.
While France has officially supplied Ukraine with military vehicles - in particular old Peugeot P4s, the indestructible 4x4s of the French army, or just as old VABs (Véhicule de l'avant armoré), another French car has put its wheels on the battlefield, but outside any official circuit.
And, for good reason, it is a Peugeot 307 CC, coupé cabriolet produced from 2003 to 2008 by the Sochaux brand and whose use as a combat vehicle is hard to imagine.
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A Ukrainian freelance photographer, Evgeniy Maloletka, has however published on Instagram an unusual photograph of such a car, deeply re-bodied to the point that it is difficult to recognize it at first glance.
Much of the bodywork has been removed, giving it a beach
buggy
look , ground clearance has been raised, a bull bar has been added, as well as a machine gun that sits on the roof hard, originally retractable.
“
The Dakar rally would be a cakewalk for this Mad Max car.
We have doubts that Peugeot had prepared its 307 model for such challenges
,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense quipped on Twitter.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: understand everything about the vast Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region
In the photograph published by the photographer on September 17, the vehicle crosses a pontoon in the region of Izium, the site of a vast and spectacular counter-offensive by the Ukrainian forces which have for ten days taken over all the territories controlled by the Russians in Kharkiv Oblast.
Another image, from AFP this time, shows the same car, with the same blue and yellow flag, in the city of Izium on September 14 during the visit of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Peugeot was also seen in the streets of Izioum.
JUAN BARRETO / AFP
One can certainly doubt the crossing capacities of this traction thought for the walk in the open air, even after its transformation, which certainly does not make it a thunderbolt of war.
The armament is also light to say the least.
But it underlines how much the Ukrainians, in parallel with the ultramodern Western equipment they have received, have also developed a strategy close to DIY, to adapt civilian vehicles for military purposes.
Complementary to heavy vehicles such as tanks, these light and mobile vehicles are useful for quickly occupying terrain, harassing enemy lines, making contact briefly and then fleeing quickly to escape counter-battery fire.
We have thus seen the multiplication of images and videos of "buggies" armed in particular with anti-tank missiles.
Beyond the symbol, this funny militarized Peugeot coupé-cabriolet illustrates this "system D" implemented in the heart of the war.