On 10 September the Czech-Ukrainian project MELICH officially unveiled the GOLEM DEFENDER modular defensive bunker for military and civilian protection. The system was designed around the needs of today's battlefield and was developed and tested primarily with the elite 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.
The project is not built on delivering a limited number of finished bunkers. The Czech side transfers the production technology, know-how and training. The Ukrainian side provides local material and its own personnel. The result is a decentralised capability to rapidly produce and install protective structures directly in Ukraine's combat zones.
Alongside active combat engineers, members of the 3rd Army Corps veterans' corps are to join the implementation teams. The project thus combines active engineering capacity with the practical experience of war veterans and gives them a concrete role in building defensive infrastructure.
We don't want to send ten or twenty bunkers to Ukraine and call it done. We want to hand over the technology, the know-how, and train people who can produce them themselves.
At the front, what matters is the level of protection, the speed of construction and the ability to build again and again with our own forces. We need technologies we can take over and build ourselves according to the current situation.
The battlefield is the final test. Presentations and marketing don't decide anything. What matters is what the structure withstands and whether we can produce it from the resources we have. Combat-proven is not a label for us. It is the way functional systems get developed.
Public fundraiser: production capability instead of a one-off delivery
Through a transparent public fundraiser at golemdefender.cz the project is now seeking CZK 10 million to transfer the technology and build up production capacity within Ukrainian units.
Every CZK 2 million funds one production set (50 production moulds), the material for the first GOLEM and training for four workers. The goal is ten production sets (500 moulds), 40 trained workers and a resulting production capacity of up to 10 GOLEMs per day.
A one-off donation gets used up. Technology and the ability to produce are permanent.
Media contact
GOLEM DEFENDER
Vladimír Hanzl, on behalf of the golemdefender.cz project team
Support the technology transfer
The fundraiser runs on the transparent ČSOB account 361770748/0300. Donate by card, QR payment or bank transfer.