Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation equips 900 MANPADSs with thermal sights

The Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation has equipped 900 Igla MANPADs with a thermal imaging scope.

The Foundation’s press service announced this.

The Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation is modernizing Soviet Igla man-portable air defense systems and installing thermal imaging sights on them to enable their operators to counter air targets at night.

Since the beginning of 2024, the Foundation has imported 900 new thermal imagers to Ukraine and has already started their transfer to the units: 400 Guide TK631 sights and 500 Guide TK431 monoculars.

The total cost of the purchased thermal imaging scopes is $1 million 213 thousand.

Igla MANPADS is a Soviet man-portable anti-aircraft missile system designed to engage low-flying targets on oncoming and parallel courses.

The system can be used by one soldier. It is capable of hitting aerial targets at a distance of up to 5,000 meters at an altitude of up to 3500 meters.

The thermal imagers will be adapted to Soviet-era Igla MANPADS using a special mount developed by the specialists of the Technary Design Bureau.

Due to the use of the “see-and-aim” principle, the Soviet-era MANPADS could only work if its operator could clearly see the target. The installation of a sight solves this problem and allows the man-portable air defense system to be used at night and in bad weather conditions.

The modernized man-portable air defense systems are used, in particular, by small mobile air defense teams to intercept Russian cruise missiles and drones.

It is noted that the “Igla+thermal imager” project is working, and the Air Force regularly reports on Shahed drones and missiles being downed by soldiers of mobile fire teams.

“As soon as the first missile was shot down, the project paid off at this stage. After all, the cost of one missile and the saved infrastructure, which this missile did not hit, is much more than we spent on thermal imaging optics,” the Foundation noted.

On January 23, within the framework of the same project, the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation purchased 500 thermal imagers.