The scene is as old as war itself. Two soldiers, hands in the air, surrender and carefully obey orders barking at them from the other side.
Except in this case, there were no human captors to be seen. Instead, the two Russians were delivering Ukrainian land robots and drones controlled by a single pilot from the safety of a position miles from the front line.
This is the future of war – and it’s happening now.
“The position was taken without firing a single shot,” Mykola “Makar” Zinkevich, the commander of the Ukrainian unit conducting the mission, told CNN.
Zinkevich, who serves in the “NC13” unit of Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade and handles ground-based, robotic strike systems, said last summer’s operation marked the first time in history that enemy positions were attacked and prisoners taken by ground robots and drones without the involvement of infantry. It’s a claim that’s hard to confirm, but it underscores Kiev’s pride in its technology.
Since then, missions where robots replace human soldiers have become the unit’s daily bread and butter.
The skies above the front lines in Ukraine have been filled with drones for years, posing a serious threat to infantry. As a result, the Ukrainians started using land drones – remotely controlled vehicles that run on wheels or tracks – and ground robotic systems. They were originally mostly used to evacuate casualties and resupply troops, but increasingly also to conduct combat assault missions.
Land drones are much more difficult to detect and intercept than large military vehicles. Compared to their aerial counterparts, they can operate in all weathers and carry much larger payloads.
They are also very durable and have a very long battery life. Late last year, the Third Army Corps, of which the Third Separate Assault Brigade is part, said a single land robot equipped with a machine gun had been able to hold off Russian advances for 45 days while requiring only light repairs and battery recharges every two days.
“We have to understand that we will never have more personnel, and we will never have a numerical advantage over the enemy,” Zinkevich said, highlighting Russia’s much greater military power. “So, we need to achieve this advantage through technology.”
The current goal, he said, was to replace a third of the infantry with drones and robots this year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed on Tuesday that drones and robots had conducted more than 22,000 missions in the past three months alone. “More than 22,000 lives were saved when robots instead of soldiers went into the most dangerous areas,” Zelensky said in a speech marking the success of Ukraine’s military technology industry.
Robert Tolast, a land warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, said Ukraine’s new advances “will fuel a fierce debate about whether these robots are the future of warfare.”
He said it’s likely ground drones would struggle to actually hold territory, comparing them to using tanks without infantry support. But they are now “routinely performing casualty evacuations, dangerous resupply missions, mine clearance and saving soldiers’ lives in escalating combat,” he said.
“This is critical in a war where aerial drone surveillance has made movement close to the front line almost lethal… Even envisioning a future where NATO fights like Ukraine, it is almost certain that these systems will find many uses in other militaries,” he added.
Drone superiority
More than four years of war have forced Ukraine to become a global leader in battlefield drones and robotic systems. But with the appointment of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine’s defense minister in January, pressure for supremacy in that area has increased.
Fedorov was previously Minister of Digital Transformation, where he oversaw Ukraine’s successful drone warfare project. After taking the defense portfolio, Fedorov presented what the ministry called the War Plan, a blueprint for how Ukraine plans to “strengthen Russia in peace.”
The strategy is heavily focused on technology and data, with hundreds of companies participating in dozens of government-led drone development and production initiatives.
Fedorov said Sunday that he wants ground-based robotic systems to eventually handle frontline logistics in their entirety.
Battle planning focuses on both defense and offense. The goal is to use data and technology to identify every air threat in real time and intercept at least 95% of missiles and drones, as well as create a 15- to 20-kilometer-deep “kill zone” along the front line, where drones and robots are constantly operating. The Defense Ministry said last week that about 1,000 crews were working as part of this new, integrated program.
Zinkevich, the Ukrainian ground-based robotics commander, said scalability is critical. Russia is behind in the race, but it is also making progress, he said. “On the battlefield, the decisive factor is not who invented the technology and how to apply it, but who managed to scale it over the long term.”
Recent technological advances have given Ukraine a clear advantage of drones on the battlefield, analysts say. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor, recently assessed that this drone superiority is “contributing to deterring Russian advances and recent Ukrainian counterattacks.”
“While neither side has been able to make decisive gains, Ukraine’s mid-range strike campaign has allowed Kiev to regain the upper hand,” its analysts wrote in a note, adding that “the challenge for Ukraine now will be to stay one step ahead of Russia’s response.”
Exchange expertise for missiles
A drone-based battlefield advantage may not be decisive for the war, but Kiev’s clear leadership in drone warfare is now drawing more attention outside of Europe.
An example is in the Middle East, where many countries have invested heavily in building up their conventional military capabilities, since the start of the Iran conflict, unexpectedly finding themselves using $4 million missiles to shoot down a $50,000 drone.
Ukraine’s own limited resources have forced it to develop cheaper and more effective ways to combat drones. Previously reluctant allies are now listening.
Zelensky has personally traveled to the Middle East, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates before heading to Turkey and Syria, offering to share some of Ukraine’s hard-earned expertise in exchange for support. Kiev has a lot to offer the Gulf countries, which in turn has the resources Ukraine needs – such as missiles for air defense. Zelensky has also signed an array of new agreements with several European countries.
Another big thing for Ukraine – and any military in the world – is of course AI. Ukraine is making progress in developing and training AI models for unmanned systems using real battlefield data.
But most remain cautious about using AI in land drones. Zinkevich said that while he can see some processes being automated, he’s not sure fully autonomous technologies have a place on the battlefield.
“The final decision should always be made by humans,” he said. “Are you going to hand over weapons to artificial intelligence? How can we be sure that it can distinguish friend from foe? How can we be sure that there won’t be any harm or that something will go wrong?”
Still, as a former infantry and assault group commander, now in charge of robots, Zinkevich said he is constantly amazed by the technological advances that have emerged over the past four years.
“If I had heard that in 2022, I would have said that some madman is talking … it’s all just science fiction,” he said.
But he’s in everyone now. “Human life is precious, while robots do not bleed. Based on this, my position is that robotic ground systems need to be developed very quickly, on a very large scale, and implemented as a universal system for use on the battlefield.”
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