Ukraine Officially Confirms That It Has Turkish Laser-Guided TRLG-230 Missiles
Last week, the Ukrainian Ground Forces’ 49th Artillery Brigade released an image of the TRLG-230 Laser Guided Surface-to-Surface Missile System, made by Roketsan, on the front lines in Ukraine on its social media page. A TRLG-230 Missile Carrying and Loading Vehicle manufactured by BMC is seen supplying ammunition to a TRLG-230 Missile Launch System integrated onto the Russian-made Kamaz 65224 6×6 chassis in the photo posted with the headline “ready for counterattack.” Although images of TRLG-230s reportedly belonging to Ukraine had previously circulated on social media, official sources confirmed that the Ukrainian Army procured TRLG-230 missiles for the first time with this image.
The first claim that Turkey supplied a large number of TRLG-230 precision-guided missiles to Ukraine surfaced in an article titled ‘The Stalwart Ally: Turkey’s Arms Deliveries To Ukraine’ published in November of last year by the Open-source intelligence (OSINT) defense analysis site Oryx. Later, in a statement to Middle East Eye, two unnamed sources close to the subject confirmed Oryx’s story. While one source reported that Turkey had handed over roughly 50 TRLG-230 missiles to Ukraine, another claimed that up to 200 missiles had been sent so far. Furthermore, one of Oryx’s executives, analyst Stijn Mitzer, told Middle East Eye that Turkey was the first country to deliver such weapons to Ukraine before the US supplied the HIMARS MLRS systems that arrived in June.
Although it is confirmed by the photo shared by the 49th Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces that Ukraine has these systems, the remaining claims are still in need of a future confirmation by the official authorities. In addition, it is not yet known whether the equipment in question was delivered as part of a contract between Ukraine and Roketsan or whether they were donated by Turkey as military aid.
The TRLG-230 Missile is a laser-guided version of the battlefield-proven TRG-230 Missile. Roketsan began work on the development of the TRLG-230 Missile in May 2020. Design work at the company was finished swiftly, and prototype production began in June. The first test-launch as part of the integration of the laser seeker into the TRG-230 Missile System took place on July 2, 2020, at the Sinop Test Center. The missile successfully completed its second test launch two days after the first, hitting a target off the coast of the Black Sea under more difficult conditions. On August 30, 2020, Roketsan published the first footage of the missile’s test launch. During the same time period, the TRLG-230 missile was exported to Azerbaijan and employed in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War alongside Bayraktar TB2 drones.
The TRLG-230 Missile‘s Global Positioning System, Inertial Navigation System, and Laser Seeker enable effective hits with pinpoint accuracy against high-priority targets within a range of 20 – 70 km. With a diameter of 230 mm and a weight of 210 kg, the TRLG-230 Missile carries a 42 kg warhead with an effective radius of 55 meters. The missile has a maximum circular error probability (CEP) of 2 meters and can be adapted to various types of platforms via appropriate interfaces with ROKETSAN’s Multiple Barrel Rocket Launcher Weapon System. Military ports and airports, assembly areas (vehicle and/or personnel), targets detected with high accuracy, logistics facilities, artillery and air defense systems, command, control, and communication systems are among the potential targets of the TRLG-230, which is fired at the target by laser marking via a land platform or UAV platform.