Robots are taking out soldiers in Ukraine. An American veteran said that they are best when they are cheap.

• A US Navy veteran who served in Ukraine says the use of robots to evacuate the wounded has been effective.

• He said they are often cheaper, which is good because these systems are the target.

• He said the lesson for the West is that cheap systems are often best.

With drones always buzzing overhead, ready to dive bombers or relay targeting data to artillery gun teams, sending humans to rescue casualties can be too dangerous, so Ukraine is turning to robots to evacuate wounded troops.

An American veteran in Ukraine who saw them in action told Business Insider that they are effective – And while Ukraine is right to keep them simple and cheap, many can’t afford it.

Ukraine is increasingly using ground robots, a type of drone, to counter Russian attacks by carrying supplies, acting as bombs and evacuating wounded soldiers.

Many of these systems come from Ukrainian companies and manufacturers within Ukraine’s European partners. It is a technology that militaries are increasingly paying attention to, seeing it as a life-saving solution on the modern battlefield, although in NATO and Western militaries, the focus is mainly on theory, testing and prototyping.

Even in Ukraine, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) make up only a small fraction of drones used in combat.

Jeffrey Wells, a US Navy veteran with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, is now helping a nonprofit organization in Ukraine. He told Business Insider that using ground robots for emergency evacuations isn’t ideal, but it’s useful. He said the West should pay attention but avoid over-engineering or overspending on these types of systems.

The robots “don’t always succeed, but at least it’s something,” he said.

Casualty evacuation robots act like remote-controlled stretchers, but rescuing wounded troops isn’t foolproof: with so many drones overhead, they’re easy to spot — and even easier to attack.

Ukrainian soldiers have pointed out the limitations of ground robots in evacuating the wounded, noting that they can be a lifeline for wounded soldiers when their comrades are unsafe to come pick them up, they can be jammed, they can break, and they can be targeted like any other moving object in combat.

Oleksandr Yabchanka, head of robotic systems for the da Vinci Wolves battalion, previously told Business Insider that they are a last-resort tool because a wounded soldier could end up in a “worse situation.”

They’re a “last hope kind of thing,” Wells said. “And it shouldn’t cost a lot of money and should be something that’s easily developed, replaced, and deployed.”

The purpose of Wales’ work in Ukraine is to help civilians avoid war. He’s there with Task Force Ental, a nonprofit organization run by U.S. veterans that provides medical training, supplies, and evacuation support to civilians, especially in front-line areas.

He said extraction robots don’t need to be flawless technology — technology is evolving so quickly that whatever works today could be redesigned next week. What’s important, he said, is getting things usable in the field now, because saving lives trumps the beauty of engineering.

Very cheap robots

Wells said the robot he saw at work was “low tech” but got the job done, rather than the more advanced and $100,000 worth of 10 robots that cost $1,000.

“You need something effective, essentially a stretcher with wheels that gives hope to the injured person.” It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

In talks with Business Insider, Ukrainian soldiers, foreign volunteers and weapons manufacturers emphasized key lessons for the West: prioritize the cheapest systems over some of the best systems, don’t spend money on technology that can quickly become obsolete, and resist the urge to over-engineer and overspend on gear that changes gears every week.

When it comes to robots for evacuation, Wells said the best thing is to keep the technology cheap and affordable so that the military “doesn’t have to use it because it costs a lot of money.”

Western militaries are increasingly worried and concerned about the evacuation of casualties in high-intensity combat, acknowledging that it will not be the same as in the Middle East, where they once controlled the skies.

For decades, Western militaries have counted on the “golden hour,” the crucial first 60 minutes after injury when prompt treatment dramatically increases the chance of survival. But Ukrainian forces often don’t watch out for that window, and troops warn it could be lost in a high-intensity battle with Russia or China.

In this type of combat, it is difficult to remove wounded troops from the battlefield. Without air superiority, it is not possible to fly a Black Hawk in a medevac to care for a wounded soldier in a field hospital without putting more troops at risk.

This is why an increasing number of Western militaries are turning to robots for these missions.

For example, the US military has been exploring using unfamiliar systems for crash evacuation for years. In a 2016 test, the Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center used a ground robot to evacuate a crash victim to an unmanned aircraft, which flew the patient to a medical facility for treatment.

Following the 2025 incident, an Army aeromedical officer said that drone technology “could be used to transport wounded soldiers to ambulance exchange points. That capability could preserve the ‘golden hour’ in large-scale combat operations and dramatically increase survivability.”

U.S. Army Col. Johnny Paul, a Medical Service Corps officer, wrote in an article this past summer that UGVs are “the next big thing in theater CASEVAC,” but ground robots aren’t strictly necessary for casualty evacuation operations.

“Developing medical-only UGVs could be a mistake. Single-use platforms can limit operational flexibility and make them vulnerable to targeting,” he wrote, adding that the military should pursue multi-role platforms.

Cost, however, is also a major consideration, as Wells points out. U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll made the point this year while outlining problems with the robotic combat vehicle program, which was seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of robots. “We can’t protect a two million dollar piece of equipment that can be outsourced from an $800 drone and ammo,” he said.

Some Ukrainian recognition systems also cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but are much cheaper. Tencore’s Termit robot, for example, runs about $14,000, and commanders say many of the machines they use cost less than $10,000. Even at that low price point, one commander said three or four could be destroyed a week — meaning the costs add up quickly.

Read the original article on Business Insider