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Chechen fighters have modified the Tesla Cybertruck and are thanking the vehicle’s developer, Elon Musk.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s combat forces in the Chechen region, posted a video of himself on Saturday riding in a Cybertruck equipped with a machine gun, which he said he plans to deploy in the Russia-Ukraine war.
“The Cybertruck will be arriving in the SVO region shortly and will be in high demand under the right conditions. I am confident this ‘beast’ will serve our soldiers well,” he said in a Telegram post.
“SVO Zone” refers to the combat area in Ukraine.
Kadyrov praised the car and Musk in a Telegram post, according to Reuters.
“We received the Tesla Cybertruck from the esteemed Elon Musk. I was excited to test this new technology and personally witnessed why it is aptly named the ‘Cyberbeast,'” he wrote in the post.
The Independent has reached out to Tesla for comment.
He called Musk “the greatest genius of our time” and invited the Tesla and X CEO to visit Chechnya.
“We look forward to your upcoming products that will aid in the completion of special military operations,” he wrote.
“Special military operations” is Russia’s official term for the war in Ukraine. Kadyrov is a staunch supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He said in May that 43,500 Chechen fighters had fought in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Cybertruck isn’t Musk’s only product to emerge during the Ukraine war: Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system has been in use by the Ukrainian and Russian militaries since 2022. However, Musk has previously said he doesn’t want the Starlink system to be used in warfare, Insider reported.
During Musk’s interview with Donald Trump on Monday, Trump told the Tesla CEO that “nobody is more pessimistic about the situation in Ukraine than I am,” claimed he had warned Putin not to invade, and repeated his dubious claim that the invasion would not have happened if he were president.
He also called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s handling of the call that led to Trump’s impeachment in 2019 “highly honorable.”
The first impeachment against Trump came after it emerged he had tried to pressure Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter for their business dealings in Ukraine.
President Zelensky denied at the time that he believed the calls constituted a threat or extortion.
