Khartiia Brigade successfully evacuates wounded soldier thanks to ground robot that travelled 12 km
Source: Oboronka, a project of Mezha Media, a technology and IT news platform within Ukrainska Pravda's holding company, with reference to Khartiia Brigade press service
Details: In a conversation with Oboronka, Khartiia clarified that it was a Ukrainian robot logistician called Tarhan that had been converted into a tow truck.
"A Khartiia soldier, who needed medical assistance, was put onto a ground robotic complex and successfully delivered to the evacuation team, from where he was taken to doctors," the brigade said.
The joint operation of the ground robotic system unit and the operational support battalion was conducted in the area of responsibility of the Khartiia Brigade to the north of Kharkiv. The total distance of the evacuation route was 12 km.
Background:
At the end of 2024, the team conducted the first fully robotic operation - without human intervention, using only ground robotic systems and drones. You can watch the timeline of the first 24 hours of the operation in the film The movement has begun.
In addition, you can read more about ground-based robotic systems for evacuation in the article.
Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
19 hours ago
- NBC News
Criminals, good guys and foreign spies: Hackers everywhere are using AI now
This summer, Russia's hackers put a new twist on the barrage of phishing emails sent to Ukrainians. The hackers included an attachment containing an artificial intelligence program. If installed, it would automatically search the victims' computers for sensitive files to send back to Moscow. That campaign, detailed in July in technical reports from the Ukrainian government and several cybersecurity companies, is the first known instance of Russian intelligence being caught building malicious code with large language models (LLMs), the type of AI chatbots that have become ubiquitous in corporate culture. Those Russian spies are not alone. In recent months, hackers of seemingly every stripe — cybercriminals, spies, researchers and corporate defenders alike — have started including AI tools into their work. LLMs, like ChatGPT, are still error-prone. But they have become remarkably adept at processing language instructions and at translating plain language into computer code, or identifying and summarizing documents. The technology has so far not revolutionized hacking by turning complete novices into experts, nor has it allowed would-be cyberterrorists to shut down the electric grid. But it's making skilled hackers better and faster. Cybersecurity firms and researchers are using AI now, too — feeding into an escalating cat-and-mouse game between offensive hackers who find and exploit software flaws and the defenders who try to fix them first. 'It's the beginning of the beginning. Maybe moving towards the middle of the beginning,' said Heather Adkins, Google's vice president of security engineering. In 2024, Adkins' team started on a project to use Google's LLM, Gemini, to hunt for important software vulnerabilities, or bugs, before criminal hackers could find them. Earlier this month, Adkins announced that her team had so far discovered at least 20 important overlooked bugs in commonly used software and alerted companies so they can fix them. That process is ongoing. None of the vulnerabilities have been shocking or something only a machine could have discovered, she said. But the process is simply faster with an AI. 'I haven't seen anybody find something novel,' she said. 'It's just kind of doing what we already know how to do. But that will advance.' Adam Meyers, a senior vice president at the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, said that not only is his company using AI to help people who think they've been hacked, he sees increasing evidence of its use from the Chinese, Russian, Iranian and criminal hackers that his company tracks. 'The more advanced adversaries are using it to their advantage,' he said. 'We're seeing more and more of it every single day,' he told NBC News. The shift is only starting to catch up with hype that has permeated the cybersecurity and AI industries for years, especially since ChatGPT was introduced to the public in 2022. Those tools haven't always proved effective, and some cybersecurity researchers have complained about would-be hackers falling for fake vulnerability findings generated with AI. Scammers and social engineers — the people in hacking operations who pretend to be someone else, or who write convincing phishing emails — have been using LLMs to seem more convincing since at least 2024. But using AI to directly hack targets is only just starting to actually take off, said Will Pearce, the CEO of DreadNode, one of a handful of new security companies that specialize in hacking using LLMs. The reason, he said, is simple: The technology has finally started to catch up to expectations. 'The technology and the models are all really good at this point,' he said. Less than two years ago, automated AI hacking tools would need significant tinkering to do their job properly, but they are now far more adept, Pearce told NBC News. Another startup built to hack using AI, Xbow, made history in June by becoming the first AI to climb to the top of the HackerOne U.S. leaderboard, a live scoreboard of hackers around the world that since 2016 has kept tabs on the hackers identifying the most important vulnerabilities and giving them bragging rights. Last week, HackerOne added a new category for groups automating AI hacking tools to distinguish them from individual human researchers. Xbow still leads that. Hackers and cybersecurity professionals have not settled whether AI will ultimately help attackers or defenders more. But at the moment, defense appears to be winning. Alexei Bulazel, the senior cyber director at the White House National Security Council, said at a panel at the Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas last week that the trend will hold, at least as long as the U.S. holds most of the world's most advanced tech companies. 'I very strongly believe that AI will be more advantageous for defenders than offense,' Bulazel said. He noted that hackers finding extremely disruptive flaws in a major U.S. tech company is rare, and that criminals often break into computers by finding small, overlooked flaws in smaller companies that don't have elite cybersecurity teams. AI is particularly helpful in discovering those bugs before criminals do, he said. 'The types of things that AI is better at — identifying vulnerabilities in a low cost, easy way — really democratizes access to vulnerability information,' Bulazel said. That trend may not hold as the technology evolves, however. One reason is that there is so far no free-to-use automatic hacking tool, or penetration tester, that incorporates AI. Such tools are already widely available online, nominally as programs that test for flaws in practices used by criminal hackers. If one incorporates an advanced LLM and it becomes freely available, it likely will mean open season on smaller companies' programs, Google's Adkins said. 'I think it's also reasonable to assume that at some point someone will release [such a tool],' she said. 'That's the point at which I think it becomes a little dangerous.' Meyers, of CrowdStrike, said that the rise of agentic AI — tools that conduct more complex tasks, like both writing and sending emails or executing code that programs — could prove a major cybersecurity risk. 'Agentic AI is really AI that can take action on your behalf, right? That will become the next insider threat, because, as organizations have these agentic AI deployed, they don't have built-in guardrails to stop somebody from abusing it,' he said.
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business Insider
A Ukrainian weapons maker is building a new unjammable drone with a 100-kilometer reach. It says 'the war has changed.'
A Ukrainian company is developing an unjammable fiber-optic drone that can roam nearly 100 kilometers from its operator — more than doubling the reach of current models — in a bid to radically extend the reach of one of the war's most feared weapons. The co-founder of Fold, who asked to only be identified as Volodymyr for security reasons, told Business Insider that the range upgrade is essential as Ukraine races to match a battlefield that shifts by the day and punishes anything that can't keep up. "Today, war has changed," Volodymyr said in emailed remarks. The high-value targets are farther away from the front lines than they used to be, making it imperative that drones have the reach. Fiber-optic drones are regular first-person-view (FPV) drones — small, commercially available quadcopters that can cost as little as a few hundred dollars and carry a large enough explosive payload to destroy a multimillion-dollar tank. However, instead of a radio frequency connection between the drone and its operator, fiber-optic drones are fitted with spools of long, thin cables to preserve a steady link. This makes them practically immune to electronic warfare tactics and especially dangerous in combat. For soldiers, the only real hope of stopping an unjammable drone is with a shotgun. There's a lot of luck in that kind of defense. With no reliable solutions to defend against fiber-optic drones, which can deliver precision strikes, they are emerging as a weapon of choice for Ukraine and Russia. Production is ramping up, and cables are now stretching across the battlefield, glistening in the sun like spider webs, as combat videos have shown. Fold is one of many Ukrainian companies working on fiber-optic drones for the country's armed forces. The firm started out building drones with a 5-kilometer range, but has since extended this to 15 and up to 25 kilometers — relatively standard distances. Volodymyr said this "first generation" of fiber-optic drones was more relevant last year when enemy positions were closer, sometimes even visible with the naked eye, at a distance of several kilometers. He said the front lines now look different from earlier in the conflict. Opposing troop positions have moved farther away from each other, creating a large gap — or a "gray zone" — that serves as a graveyard for tanks, armored vehicles, and soldiers. Important and expensive military equipment is harder to reach. "The flight range of 10-15 kilometers is often insufficient to destroy large enemy targets," Volodymyr said. He added that fiber-optic drones able to fly beyond 30 kilometers are more relevant at this stage in the war, and Fold is working on these kinds of drones, including some with ranges of 40 and 50 kilometers. Samuel Bendett, a drone expert and an advisor in the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research institution, told Business Insider that both Russia and Ukraine are working on 40-kilometer fiber-optic spools, noting "there is evidence at the front that such strikes are already taking place." But Fold is aiming farther than this. The company has initiated the research and development process of a second generation of fiber-optic drones, and it plans to launch drones with a range between 50 and 100 kilometers within the next few months. Bendett said "longer distances are certainly achievable," but they will depend on the skill of drone pilots and other factors. It is nearly certain, he added, that the ambitious range extensions will come with considerable technical and environmental challenges. One of the biggest vulnerabilities of fiber-optic drones is their cables, which can get easily snagged or tangled on the battlefield — either through enemy action or accident. The expanded ranges will require much longer coils than previous variants, potentially making drones more susceptible to hang-ups. An official familiar with warfighting innovations in Ukraine, who spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity to discuss this technology, said that longer cables raise the risk that the drone will encounter more obstacles on its path that could damage it. The longer cables needed to satisfy the expanded range also add to the drone's weight, which could force developers to reduce the size of its combat payload, ultimately making the weapon less deadly and reducing its combat effectiveness. The official said the extended-range drones will require larger frames to support the added weight. This could drive up costs and make the drones less nimble on the battlefield. Volodymyr acknowledges the challenges in fielding this kind of technology. However, there are potential engineering workarounds, and he said the extended range will not compromise the drone's resistance to electronic warfare, the priority with this tech. "That is exactly how we made it. This was the main goal of our development (or invention)," he stressed. It's unclear whether other Ukrainian companies are trying to expand the range of their drones as far as Fold hopes, but fiber-optic drone manufacturing continues to be a major focus of Kyiv's defense industry as cheap, uncrewed aerial systems prove their unrelenting dominance on the battlefield. "Conventional small arms are no longer as relevant as they were in the past," Volodymyr said. "Shooting from rifles and machine guns is often useless. The bullets simply do not reach the enemy." Fiber-optic drones "play a very important role in eliminating attacks (assaults)," he said, referring to Russian mechanized infantry and armored assaults on Ukrainian posts. "They destroy enemy armored vehicles and personnel on distant approaches — tens of kilometers from the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where small arms cannot reach."
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business Insider
Kyivstar Hopes to Shine in New York as Ukraine Peace Talks Begin
Shares in Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar will start trading in New York today hoping that peace talks to end the devastating war in the country will significantly boost the company's value. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Chief executive officer Oleksandr Komarov said ahead of the Nasdaq listing that the summit between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska, scheduled for August 15 th, would help drive investment into Ukraine if an end to the three-year war is found. Invest in Recovery 'We will be the best asset for the international investment community to invest in Ukraine, to invest in the Ukrainian recovery, to invest in the Ukrainian support,' Komarov said. Komarov said the company chose Nasdaq, where its Dubai-based parent VEON (VEON) is also listed, over London or Warsaw because it is even more important to 'strengthen the link between the United States and Ukraine rather than between Ukraine and Europe.' VEON shares were up 1.6% in pre-market trading. The company has also strengthened its U.S. ties during the conflict, appointing former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to its board and signing a deal with Elon Musk's Starlink for satellite services. Kyivstar, which has been given a pro forma valuation of $2.3 billion, carried out the listing by merging with fintech entrepreneur Betsy Cohen's Cohen Circle special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The company raised $178 million, confirming earlier reports that it expected up to $200 million. VEON will retain a majority stake in the mobile operator. People's IPO The company has previously stated that it has had extremely strong support for the Kyivstar listing from U.S. authorities, Ukraine and the European Union. Indeed, it has described the listing as 'the people's IPO', hoping that investors around the world would show their support for Ukraine. Kyivstar is the market-leading mobile operator in Ukraine with 24 million subscribers. Analysts agreed that the narrative around the deal was built around Ukraine's postwar reconstruction and digital infrastructure's role in that recovery. However, investors will also likely question the strength of that recovery and the likelihood of any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia holding over the long-term.
