Latest news with #Zmiy
Irish Independent
23-04-2025
- Irish Independent
Iona Cleave: How Ukraine's robot army is a glimpse of future warfare
The 'Zmiy', or 'Snake', is one of dozens of Ukrainian-made robots recently approved for combat that are helping Kyiv replace soldiers with machines.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Yahoo
Ukraine's robot army is a glimpse of future warfare
The 'Zmiy', or 'Snake', is one of dozens of Ukrainian-made robots recently approved for combat that are helping Kyiv replace soldiers with machines. Guided by a pilot in a bunker a few miles away, it doesn't slither like its reptile namesake – it silently crawls low to the ground, detonating Russian mines in its path. The model is one of several that will make up the 15,000 robots that Kyiv has pledged to deploy to the battlefield in 2025 in an effort to help overcome its crippling manpower shortages at the front, where Ukrainian troops are outgunned and often outmanned by Russians at a rate of three-to-one. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the less-developed field of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are being built to save lives, but there are also fears they reduce the barriers to killing, pushing the conflict into uncharted territory. The proliferation of machines on the battlefield of Ukraine also offers a glimpse into a future where humans and robots increasingly do battle, and one in which even the most highly trained soldiers are little match for an engineer with a controller, hiding in a bunker. The developers behind this fledgling robot army told The Telegraph that the so-called 'war of the robots' – although still in its early, experimental stages – is already here. The focus, they said, was not about replacing infantry, but integrating robots into military operations to gain the technological edge against Russia in a war of grinding attrition. Ukraine's front line grows more dystopian by the day. AI-guided drones fill the skies, electronic jamming signals pollute the air, while ground robots creep unnoticed through the undergrowth, blowing up enemy positions. The country has been turned into a war laboratory for future technologies and a training ground for Western weapons systems as Nato prepares its own future war with Russia. Over 500 defence start-ups focused on drones are working in secret locations across Ukraine, while large flows of investment, donations and government contracts drive innovation. Ukraine was also the first military to form a standalone drone force – the Unmanned Systems Forces. 'Ukraine is world leading in robotics – not in sophistication, but in practicality,' said David Kirichenko, an expert in autonomous systems at the Henry Jackson Society, a UK think tank. The common themes in Western-made unmanned systems are that they are expensive, often ineffective and hard to adapt. 'Ukraine, however, is focused on building robots on scale and at cost,' Mr Kirichenko told The Telegraph. Soldiers feed back directly to the designers and changes can be made 'within a week'. 'That is why Ukraine is able to survive on the battlefield,' he said. 'There are a lot of mistakes being made and a lot of learning.' The demand, driven by pure necessity, is giving Ukraine a slight edge over Russia when it comes to unmanned systems, he added. Much has been said about the proliferation and evolution of UAVs, which are now responsible for 60 to 70 per cent of Russian equipment losses. This makes them twice as effective as any other weapon in Ukraine's arsenal. Compared to aerial drones, UGV technology is still maturing and its deployment at the front has been slow and patchy. But experts say that is quickly changing. In late December, Ukraine pulled off its first robot-only assault close to the village of Lyptsi in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The operation, still partly classified, involved dozens of different drones – aerial attack drones, ground support drones and other UGVs mounted with machine guns that worked together to clear the woodland and strike targets. 'The enemy was completely caught off guard,' Shuhai, an officer from the 13th (Khartiia) brigade who took part in the mission told United24, Ukraine's official fundraising platform that has raised over $422 million for ground and aerial drones. 'They were used to drone attacks, but suddenly, they were also being hit by ground platforms that exploded and fired at them. This was unprecedented… the enemy was in total panic,' he added. It was more than a mission – it was a test. The results were furiously studied to see how the new robotic systems fared against Russian electronic jamming, navigated through tough terrain, and co-ordinated between operators and command centres. Credit: X/@UaCoins Lauded as a big success, the Khartiia brigade said the robots destroyed Russian positions so they could carry out a follow-up assault and take territory. 'It set the ground for a future where drones could be launched from other drones and co-ordinate with one another,' Marcel Plichta, a former analyst for the US Department of Defence, told The Telegraph. 'This is something Western militaries should be watching,' he said, noting that the next move would be to have UAVs and UGVs acting autonomously together. 'The technology is not quite there yet, but that is the next frontier'. Last week, Ukraine approved the new D-21-12R, a machine gun mounted ground robot that can storm enemy positions, carry out surveillance, patrol the battlefield and provide fire support to units. Credit: Facebook/ FDRM Group A similar-looking machine, the 'Fury', has been involved in combat since last May, and in September it managed to clear a trench in Kursk – the type's first major clash. Firing its machine gun, with help from explosives drones, it won a battle against several Russian troops. Credit: X/@banderafella, Telegram/UA_REG TEAM Both systems come from the Brave1 cluster, a Ukrainian government initiative that is ground zero for all the country's robot innovation. 'In the first year [of war] no one believed in ground robots,' said a UGV expert at Brave1, who asked to remain anonymous for security purposes. 'Now we have 55 different ground robots that are codified according to Nato standards.' Currently, they are focused on producing unjammable robots. But there is a lot of development still ahead. 'All of these UGVs are battle-tested, but not all of them work 100 per cent as intended. We are still working on optimising them for military needs,' they said. Despite the hype around assault robots – or robots that kill – in reality UGVs are big, expensive and not yet reliable at the front. 'We're still learning how to effectively use UGVs for assault operations – but we are sure we can make effective war robots in the near future,' said the Brave1 expert. 'Why not, we dream big.' UGVs are, however, proving most effective in logistical and support roles, including carrying supplies and evacuating the wounded, as well as in engineer roles like mining or demining. 'At Nato, we said that drones do the dull, the dirty and the dangerous tasks,' said Phillip Lockwood, former head of the alliance's innovation unit. 'Unmanned systems exist to deter, detect and strike. It's all about creating time and space to save lives,' said Mr Lockwood, who is now CEO of Stark, a German-based start-up designing drones to modernise Nato's defence. AI is now integrated into all of Stark's unmanned systems, which Mr Lockwood said are tested on Ukraine's front line 'as soon as we can'. Its new OWE-V drone can strike targets 100km away using AI to improve accuracy, reliability and evade electronic warfare systems. 'The nature of conflict has changed, at Nato we never expected it to change this fast,' he said. 'We cannot win tomorrow's conflicts with the systems designed for yesterday's wars.' It is clear, Mr Lockwood said, that unmanned systems will be a 'critical component' of future air, land and sea forces. The Zmiy robot, which can clear two hectares of landmines in one day, is a well-tested example of unmanned systems efficiently replacing people in risky, front-line tasks. Credit: X/ @SM_EOD, Telegram/Мілітарний 'No one believed it was possible to make this robot, and here we have it,' said Borys Drozhak, co-founder at Rovertech and one of the developers behind the Zmiy. He added that Russia was still a year or two away from being able to copy its sophisticated mine-proof armour. 'Nato is interested,' he said, explaining that once Ukraine's needs were met, they planned to sell the robot elsewhere. Valerii Borovyk, commander of Ukraine's White Eagle attack drone, has also been busy working, testing and adapting AI-enabled UAVs. The focus is now on 'last mile targeting', where AI takes over, locking onto the target, in case electronic jamming severs the connection between the operator and drone. AI capabilities are still rare on the battlefield, but advancing fast. 'It's only the start of a long way to go,' said Mr Borovyk, who has been a drone developer since 2014. The future of drone warfare, he said, would be about swarms, where groups of '10, 50, 100' autonomous drones co-ordinate and collaborate on missions. Soon warfare may move into a new era of killer robots. 'Maybe in this war, or the next war,' Mr Borovyk said, underscoring the huge risk involved with giving robots critical strike information without the correct rules. But neither Ukraine or Russia are there yet. 'The technology already exists – autonomous systems that can seek, engage and target without human supervision. But in reality on the battlefield, it is not yet trusted,' said Kateryna Bondar, a military AI expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Killer robots will be ready in two years, she projected. 'I see a future where people will make the decisions and machines will execute them.' But providing autonomy to lethal drones is an ethical minefield. The fear is that drones could misidentify a target, leading to attacks on civilians or friendly fire. A greater concern is whether the militaries of hostile states even care. Like others The Telegraph spoke with, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a former commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military, warned last week that Western militaries had 'slumbered too long' when it came to the capabilities of increasingly autonomous drones. 'Fortunately, they have a gift of immeasurable value: Ukraine's hard-won expertise, forged in a gruelling fight for survival,' he wrote for the Defense One website. 'If the West wishes to survive, it must swiftly and fully embrace these lessons, and use them well.' It paints a fearful picture of a future battlefield. But perhaps one – if the right international laws are designed, agreed upon and implemented – that could be safer. 'Humans are a very unreliable and expensive asset in war,' said Ms Bondar. 'They need plenty of time and resources to be trained, they have emotions and endless needs. Machines don't have those weaknesses.' If they are pre-programmed to minimise collateral damage and not target civilians, 'maybe machines will be more ethical than humans,' Ms Bondar said. 'But we need to be having serious conversations to develop the rules.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
22-04-2025
- Telegraph
Ukraine's robot army is a glimpse of future warfare
The 'Zmiy', or 'Snake', is one of dozens of Ukrainian-made robots recently approved for combat that are helping Kyiv replace soldiers with machines. Guided by a pilot in a bunker a few miles away, it doesn't slither like its reptile namesake – it silently crawls low to the ground, detonating Russian mines in its path. The model is one of several that will make up the 15,000 robots that Kyiv has pledged to deploy to the battlefield in 2025 in an effort to help overcome its crippling manpower shortages at the front, where Ukrainian troops are outgunned and often outmanned by Russians at a rate of three-to-one. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the less-developed field of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are being built to save lives, but there are also fears they reduce the barriers to killing, pushing the conflict into uncharted territory. The proliferation of machines on the battlefield of Ukraine also offers a glimpse into a future where humans and robots increasingly do battle, and one in which even the most highly trained soldiers are little match for an engineer with a controller, hiding in a bunker. The developers behind this fledgling robot army told The Telegraph that the so-called 'war of the robots' – although still in its early, experimental stages – is already here. The focus, they said, was not about replacing infantry, but integrating robots into military operations to gain the technological edge against Russia in a war of grinding attrition.
Forbes
18-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Ukraine Is Replacing Human Soldiers With A Robot Army
Ironclad, one of many types of combat Uncrewed Ground Vehicle fielded by Ukrainian forces. Last month, Ukrainian officials announced plans to field 15,000 ground robots – Uncrewed Ground Vehicles or UGVs -- in 2025. That is a huge scaling up, and for obvious reasons. 'It's no secret that Ukraine is facing a severe shortage of personnel,' Kateryna Bondar, Fellow at Wadhwani AI Center, at the thinktank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told me. 'This creates an urgent, existential need to substitute human roles with robotic systems.' Ukraine has scaled up drone production at pace, going from a few thousand in 2022 to 200,000 in 2024 to 2 million last year. But putting thousands of metal boots on the ground to replace humans is a far more challenging prospect, as Bondar explains. The figure of 15,000 combat robots came from Hlib Kanevskyi, head of the Ukraine's Ministry of Defense quoted in Economichna Pravda. Kanevskyi says they signed contracts for $2.5 million of UGVs in the last half of 2024, in the first quarter of this year that surged to $150 million. This suggests a roughly hundred-fold increase. There is certainly plenty of optimism about military robotics, and no shortage of Ukrainian UGV designs, with developers unveiling a new model every week or so. These are wheeled and tracked machines of various shapes and sizes, with roles from minelaying and mine clearing to logistics, casualty evacuation and direct combat either with explosive payloads or machine guns. Recent trials by the BRAVE1 defense technology incubator involved 70 different types. But there is much less sign of these machines at the front. Out of 50 types approved for military use, only 10 to 15 are in regular service according to . Much if this is due to the practicalities, which are more challenging than with shoebox-sized FPVs. 'Imagine bringing a 1,000-kilogram machine to the front line,' says Bondar. 'It's a logistics issue. If it runs on fuel you have to transport that as well, if it runs on batteries they will be big and heavy and require generators to recharge.' Then there is the cost. While small drones are literally expendable items costing a few hundred dollars apiece, UGVs are not so affordable. 'Even a small one with a small payload starts at around $2,000-$3,000,' says Bondar. 'The more expensive ones are $10,000 and up. This is partly because they are much harder to manufacture -- you cannot just make a body on a 3D printer.' At those prices, UGVs are only worthwhile if they can do things which aerial drones cannot. And given that drones are excellent for scouting and hitting targets many miles away with precision strikes, UGVs tend to be confined to more niche roles. 'Logistics are an interesting use case,' says Bondar. 'UGVs are now conducting way more missions and replacing people. Using a UGV removes a person from physical risk.' Zmiy - "Snake" — is a typical logistics UGV, a remote-controlled vehicle able to carry 1,100 pounds ... More of cargo The last few miles to the front line are within the strike range of Russian FPV drones, and trucks and vans are easier to attack than dug in positions. 'Going there and coming back is a super high-risk mission,' says Bondar. 'A UGV which can carry 60 kilos can resupply a troop position for four or five days. That's very efficient.' Casualty evacuation going the other way is equally vital, though few are willing to trust a wounded soldier to a machine which may break down on the way and evacuation by UGV is seen as a last resort. Ukrainian news sources described a UGV evacuation last month, in which three wounded soldiers were transported more than 10 miles through an area covered by Russian mortar and artillery fire. The operation was a success, but it required more than 50 people to carry out, including the UGV operator, drone operators to track the UGVs progress, electronic warfare support and others. This highlights another issue with UGVs: they may be uncrewed, but it takes a lot of people to operate them. And while driving up and down well-defined roads is difficult enough, it is even harder for combat robots which have to go off road. These typically require a driver plus as weapon operator to control the UGV, as well as a two-person drone team to provide aerial overwatch and guide the team on the ground. That's four people plus a load of hardware to replace one soldier. A Russian drone operator shares his display with a colleague operating a UGV on the ground, giving ... More the UGV operator an overhead view to drive his robot. An image of a Russian UGV team in action from a TV news report illustrates this problem well. The UGV is in long grass, and the operator cannot see where he is going. The drone operator shares his display, so the UGV operator gets a bird's-eye view of his position – but the drone operator still needs the display to fly his own machine. Better software and machines which can direct themselves will greatly ease the workload. 'The future is all about autonomy and AI,' says Bondar. Smart software would allow the UGV to navigate for itself, using imagery from an autonomous drone flying overhead. The operator then becomes a mission commander, ordering the UGV where to go, and selecting and approving targets for the weapons. But achieving this is far more difficult than autonomous flight. 'Even in civilian contexts, autonomous ground navigation remains unsolved; self-driving cars still struggle with edge cases on paved roads despite years of investment and defined traffic rules,' says Bondar. And of course, things are much more difficult in a military context. 'The system must be able to perceive its environment in real time, make context-aware decisions, avoid obstacles, and control the vehicle's complex mechanical systems—all under conditions of GPS denial, degraded comms, and electronic warfare,' says Bondar. 'While some promising prototypes exist in research labs, widespread battlefield deployment—especially where a single human serves as a mission commander for multiple UGVs—will likely take several more years to mature, even in high-urgency environments like Ukraine.' But while the software is still maturing, with plenty of human assistance the hardware can already take on carry out useful missions. 'Ukraine has already carried out their first robot-only assault,' says Bondar. 'The whole thing was completely remote-controlled.' This was a successful attack on Russian positions involving a mix of scout drones, bombers, FPVs and dozens of UGVs on the ground carried out by the 13th National Guard Brigade at the end of last year. Bondar notes that as soon as the UGVs had done their job, soldiers moved in to secure the position. The Ukrainians call this approach 'assault without assault' because the soldiers themselves are not involved in the action. 'It looks like Ukraine's main goal in this operation was to collect experience, then create guidelines and standards in term of tactics so this knowledge can be distributed,' says Bondar. 'But I'm pretty sure we will see more of those.' Defensive operations are more straightforward. Ukraine has many robotic weapon systems and automated turrets. The simplest of them, are little more than a machine gun on a tripod with a video camera and a servo motor. Operators using these can co-ordinate with aerial scouts and FPV operators to blunt Russian attacks without anyone in the trenches. 'At this point I think they could hold a defensive position fairly well,' says Bondar. Looking forward, many companies are starting to produce humanoid robots which, in theory, could take on a role as soldiers. However, even tracked machines designed for the terrain have mobility issues. 'Our robot got stuck in the mud while performing a task and we sent another robot with a winch to rescue it,' runs a typical complaint cited in a Ukrainian report on UGV operations. 'As a result, the Russians destroyed the robot with the winch.' Mud, snow, sand and grass are frequently mentioned as major obstacles to UGVs. 'Robot dog' being tested in Ukraine. These have not yet found a battlefield role Legged robots, which are supposed to provide superior mobility over all sorts of terrain are not necessarily the answer. Ukraine has deployed quadrupeds – 'robot dogs' – but Bondar reports the results have been poor. 'Operators complained that ploughed fields are a problem for quadrupeds,' says Bondar. 'And they get stuck in the mud. And they can't hide. At this point they are a nice toy, with no application on the front line yet.' In principle, a humanoid robot would be far more mobile and could cross ground as easily as a human. Machines like Tesla's much-hyped Optimus and Unitree's Humanoid G1 could be useful – when the AI that drives them is smart enough. Elon Musk suggests that Optimus will start from around $30k and will drop in price. But flashy demonstration videos are one thing, practicality – as with the robot dots – is another. Machines like Tesla's Core Technology Optimus humanoid robot could in theory offer a low-cost, ... More mobile platform for military applications. 'While in theory they offer human-like mobility and could eventually move, hide, and take cover like a soldier, their real utility will only become clear through practical battlefield testing,' says Bondar. Battery life of a couple of hours could be more than enough for a robotic unit to carry out an assault, and take a position which could then be occupied by human back-up. This is only a small tactical step from actions from assaults with tracked UGVs, with the difference that humanoids might advance faster and enter trenches and dugouts to clear them. In theory, at least. 'Ultimately, the affordability and effectiveness of humanoid robots will depend entirely on the type of missions they're tasked with and how reliably they can be reused,' says Bondar. 'Until those use cases are tested and proven, their true value remains speculative.' Ukraine's 15,000 robots will be working alongside over 800,000 humans, and for the time being the machines will be in a supporting role rather than taking over combat. 'UGVs are likely to carve out an essential role in performing the most dangerous support tasks, where they can reduce risk to human soldiers without being lost in unsustainable numbers,' says Bondar. Bondar's CSIS paper Ukraine's Future Vision and Current Capabilities for Waging AI-Enabled Autonomous Warfare can be read here. The ratio of robots to humans may change rapidly in Ukraine as it has with drones. And over time AI in particular is likely to transform clumsy UGVs into more mobile, efficient fighting machines. It may not be happening yet, but removing humans from the front lines may be simply a matter of time.
