Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov sparked social media buzz this week after posting a video of himself driving a Tesla Cybertruck affixed with what appeared to be a machine gun on top.
But while the decked-out electric vehicle might look like something out of “Star Wars” — and may boast some features that could be useful in rugged terrain — the futuristic EV is likely to prove effectively useless on the actual battlefield, a military expert told Business Insider.
“Where do you recharge this thing on the battlefield? There are no Tesla outlets on the front lines in the Donbas,” said Mark Cancian, a senior advisor on the International Security Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and retired US Marine Corps colonel.
In a Saturday Telegram post, Kadyrov celebrated the Cybertruck, saying he personally understood why it’s “rightfully called the Cyberbeast.”
Kadyrov, who is a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also praised Tesla CEO Elon Musk, saying Chechnya received the Cybertruck from Musk himself — a claim the billionaire strongly denied on X.
Are you seriously so retarded that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general?
Musk used an ableist slur to ask if a user actually believed he “donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general.”
Kadyrov also claimed the Cybertruck would soon be sent to the battlefield, where war rages on two and a half years after Russia invaded the country in February 2022.
“I am confident that this ‘beast’ will greatly benefit our soldiers,” Kadyrov wrote. The leader said earlier this year that more than 43,000 Chechen fighters had served in Ukraine since the war began.
Regardless of how Kadyrov got his hands on one of the nearly $100,000 vehicles and past Western sanctions, two regional experts said the warlord’s claim that he plans to send the car to Russian soldiers in Ukraine is almost certainly bluster.
“Kadyrov is basically a bizarre man-child who loves expensive toys (and abusing the people of Chechnya),” said Simon Miles, an assistant professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a historian of the Soviet Union and US-Soviet relations. “He and Musk, at the very least, share a passion for internet trolling.”
The Putin-installed leader has a penchant for pulling elaborate publicity stunts, including playing soccer with late Argentine star Diego Maradona and convincing Hilary Swank to attend his birthday party.
But beyond Kadyrov’s lust for notoriety, sending a Cybertruck onto the battlefield just doesn’t make much logistical sense, Cancian said. The vehicle requires electricity, utilizing an electric motor and rechargeable batteries instead of the traditional gasoline engine — equipment and infrastructure that is typically lacking on the front lines of a fight, according to Cancian.
“Maybe you could bring your own generator and hook it up to some custom-design Tesla outlet, but now you’re running a generator to produce electricity to power your electric vehicle,” he said. “And where’s the value in that?”
It’s a problem the US Army is trying to solve, Cancian said. Some military stakeholders are pushing US forces to go electric to help combat the climate crisis. But electrifying Army vehicles requires a massive amount of seemingly endless and easily accessible electricity, which the military is still trying to figure out, Cancian said.
He acknowledged that there could be a rare set of circumstances in which a Cybertruck could prove useful to Russian forces in Ukraine. The vehicle’s stealth could offset its inconvenience in a special operation of sorts, according to Cancian.
But most vehicles of its size are already fairly quiet, and the long-range gun affixed to the Cybertruck flaunted by Kadyrov contradicts the covert benefits the car offers, Cancian said.
Cancian summed it up thus: “That is super cool and totally useless.”
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