Saint Nicholas to save the lives of our defenders

Saint Nicholas is the name of Ukraine’s first armored medical vehicle designed and manufactured at the Mykolaiv Armored Vehicles Plant to help soldiers of the 79th Detached Airmobile Brigade. Ivan Savka, the deputy commander who took over the vehicle, says: “First of all, I’d like to thank all the plant employees, those who are not indifferent to the current situation in our state. Every individual is doing their best to ensure our territorial integrity and avert aggressive combat actions on our territory.”

The BMM 70 is a wheeled armored amphibious medical vehicle designed on the basis of the BTR 70 at the Mykolaiv Armored Vehicles Plant. It is intended to evacuate the seriously wounded from difficult-access areas and the zones of accidents, natural calamities, and hostilities. Volodymyr Shlenskovy, medical officer at a 79th Brigade battalion, explains: “First of all, this vehicle is designed to protect the personnel, including the wounded. It is amply equipped with defibrillators, oxygen caddies, and first-aid facilities.”

It took the Saint Nicholas about a month to be assembled. One piece of this hardware costs approximately 1 million hryvnias. The funds for making Ukraine’s first armored medical vehicle came from sponsors and patrons. In addition to the life-saving equipment, the vehicle has a special ramp to transport the seriously wounded from the battlefield. Medics can thus promptly help the wounded on the move.

Handing over the vehicle to paratroopers, the plant’s acting manager Oleksandr Shvets said the machine had been made in close cooperation with medical officers and met all the requirements for rescuing the wounded in combat conditions.