Ukraine's robot war

Inside Ukraine's robot war revolution

A Ukrainian commander tells POLITICO how robotic systems are transforming the battlefield, in a development with the potential to reshape how wars are fought.

By VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA

in KYIV

The next evolution of war is happening here.

It’s already happened in the air — where Ukraine’s high-tech drones have made the 50-kilometer zone behind the front lines a death trap for Russian troops; and in the sea — where Kyiv’s maritime drones dealt heavy blows to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Now, it’s happening on land, where Ukrainian robotic systems are being used to assault and capture enemy fortifications. Combined with drones and human forces, ground robots have the potential to help reshape how wars are fought — much like the medieval advent of gunpowder, or the development of tanks during World War I.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week highlighted how human-operated robots captured a Russian ground position and forced soldiers to surrender. “For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms — ground systems and drones,” he said.

POLITICO talked to the Ukrainian commander in charge of that assault, who described how it was conducted and the broader impact of Kyiv starting to use more ground-based robots to preserve the lives of its soldiers.

“In conditions of dense saturation of the sky with UAVs, on the modern battlefield ground robotic systems allow for dangerous work to be carried out without involving personnel,” said Mykola Zinkevych, commander of the Third Assault Brigade’s ground robotic systems unit.

The robots have a wide range of uses. “Delivery of important cargo, evacuation of the wounded, conducting surveillance in open areas, destruction of enemy fortifications, sabotage operations behind enemy lines, laying minefields — all this is now performed by ground robotic systems,” Zinkevych said.

That is crucial for Ukraine, which has had difficulty recruiting enough soldiers to fight off grinding “meat wave” assaults, Russia’s relentless high-casualty infantry attacks. Ukraine’s current battlefield strategy also relies on killing more Russian troops than Moscow can recruit, so it’s crucial for Kyiv to keep its own casualties low while inflicting as much damage as possible on the invading forces.

“Infantrymen can and should be taken out of direct fire. Our goal for 2026 is to replace up to 30 percent of personnel in the most difficult areas of the front with technology,” Zinkevych said.

‘Kamikaze robots’

The operation Zelenskyy referenced happened last summer in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region — an early indicator robot use on the battlefield. Zinkevych’s unit was told to establish full control over a fortified Russian military shelter.

“Our infantry assault groups were located 5 kilometers from the target. They used two ground kamikaze robots and drones to start the assault. First, one destroyed the entrance to the Russian position,” Zinkevych said. “As soon as the second ground robot started approaching, Russians held up a cardboard sign signaling they were ready to surrender.”

After that, aerial drones escorted two Russian soldiers to the nearest Ukrainian position, where they were taken prisoner.

“Our infantry assault group entered the position and established control over it without firing a single shot,” Zinkevych added, illustrating how technology can take on some roles traditionally reserved for footsoldiers.

The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in 2022 plunged Ukraine into a technological arms race, where it is now carving out a lead. Just a couple of years ago, robots were a marginal factor on the battlefield, said Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Council of the Defense Industry.

Russia is also expanding its use of land drones to supply soldiers, evacuate the wounded and occasionally attack the enemy.

The bloodless developments underscore how robotics can shift the broader calculus of war, replacing costly human assaults with remotely operated pressure.

Robots meet reality

Land-based robots have advantages over their airborne cousins — they can carry much larger payloads, can last longer and can fight on the ground with armor protection and heavier weapons.

The Third Brigade has been actively using ground robots for more than two years. Now Ukraine’s defense ministry aims to link up that tech with its human assault forces.

“Such an approach already showed good results in the south of our country, where we liberated a big chunk of territory thanks to the new units,” the ministry said.

“The scale, speed, and scope of changes observed in Ukraine are already altering how wars are fought, how forces are organized, and how military power is generated and employed. They will define the next war,” according to a new analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mykola Bielieskov, a Ukrainian military analyst with the National Institute for Strategic Studies, compared the arrival of robots to the revolution in military affairs of the 1920s and 1930s, when new technology like machine guns, tanks and aircraft combined to upend warfare in the early 20th century.

But Bielieskov warned that the use of robots “may lead to an unfounded conclusion about the reduction of the importance of humans in war,” which he told POLITICO remains “decisive.”

Even if the robots can bear some of the burden of fighting, their “effectiveness is constrained by the difficulty of navigating rough and uneven terrain near front lines and by their high vulnerability to aerial drones,” cautioned the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

Change of thinking

Ukrainian command was initially unconvinced about ground robots as there were too few skilled operators. That changed, however, after several innovative brigades tested them in different environments and proved their value.

Adding to the need to take the tech more seriously was the success of aerial drones, where Ukraine has established an advantage over Russia and is now pummeling its troops and logistics in a “kill zone” far behind the front lines.

“Rapid expansion of the kill zone is another key factor that forced the army to rethink the role of the ground robots,” said Yuriy Poritskiy, CEO of the DevDroid defense company.

As a result, Ukraine is seeing an explosion of robot designs. Some 200 Ukrainian ground robot producers and the military have already moved from testing to being integrated with military units.

Since the start of 2025, the defense ministry approved some 40 new robots; by the end of last year, some 15,000 were supplied to the army, Fedirko said. In November, 67 units were using them; by March that had jumped to 167.

“Our goal is to perform 100 percent of front-line logistics by robotic systems,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week. “In the first half of 2026, due to increased demand, we will contract 25,000 ground robotic systems, which will be delivered to the front. This is twice as much as in the entire year 2025.”

TerMIT, developed by Ukraine’s Tencore company, is a tracked ground robot that can carry up to 400 kilograms at a top speed of 15 kilometers per hour and operates at a range of up to 40 kilometers. It’s used for everything from cargo transport to medical evacuations, and combat when equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers and is in service with the Third Assault Brigade, as well as more than 50 other units.

“TerMIT is a simple, modular platform. You can always reuse parts from destroyed robots. It fits for evacuation, logistics, fortification, assault operations, or distant mining. All you need is to put on a necessary module,” said Maksym Vasylchenko, the co-founder and CEO of Tencore.

Robots, additionally, are harder to destroy than humans.

“One TerMIT managed to lay more than 1,500 anti-tank mines before Russians destroyed it with many FPV drones,” Vasylchenko said.

Production problems

Kyiv’s issue is that soaring demand is creating a supply squeeze.

“Ukrainian producers can cover the growing demand, the bottleneck is in state procurement and in the ability to master these systems in the army,” Fedirko said.

State contract procedures for robots are slow, Vasylchenko said, adding that many companies haven’t received funding yet, and it’s already the fourth month of the year.

The government says it’s aware of the problem.

Fedorov has promised to speed up supply, built in price flexibility, improved financing, increased the procurement budget for 2026, and is planning to offer next year’s contracts by the end of this year. The government also plans to take robots off the VAT list so they don’t face an additional tax burden.

Ukraine’s European allies are also playing a role in supplying finance, either directly or through programs like the EU’s €150 billion loans-for-weapons SAFE program, which is open to Ukrainian companies.

“That financing allows most companies to survive,” Vasylchenko said. “And that’s a win-win for everyone. Nowadays, everyone is interested in our miltech and experience. And partners help us today, knowing if their time comes, they will have a partner who will come to help them.”

Many foreign robotics producers are already entering Ukraine, seeking partnerships with local companies. Ukrainian manufacturers, like DevDroid, are planning to open production in Europe, integrating into the EU defense market and getting much-needed financing, Poritskiy added.

The goal — both in Europe and in Ukraine — is to minimize human losses on the battlefield.

“We are working to ensure that the robots take the main blow, and the infantry becomes an elite, specialized force to perform those tasks that the robots cannot perform. Because one way or another, people are still the basis of the army,” Zinkevych said.