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Reuters

In a cramped workshop near the front ⁠in northeastern Ukraine, military mechanic “Chimera” is helping prepare his unit’s robot forces for battle.
Lined up in a row, the four-wheeled unmanned vehicles known as “Hyenas” will crawl towards Russian lines with their payload of explosives and attack an enemy dugout or halt an advance.
Similar models have captured Russian prisoners, said Chimera, 44, who asked to be identified by his call sign.
“Imagine what 20kg (44 pounds) of explosives is like: it’s very powerful,” he said. “Very powerful.”
Workshops like this one, run by Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, have sprouted up across the 1,200km (745-mile) front as Kyiv’s outmanned army seeks to gain ‌the technological edge against Russia’s unrelenting infantry assaults in the fifth year of war.
Unmanned ground vehicles are a critical new component of Ukraine’s strategy to fight smarter by preserving the lives of its troops on a drone-saturated battlefield, where virtually any movement can prove deadly.

Most Ukrainian brigades and regiments feature unmanned systems units which are expanding to include UGVs as part of their forces.
Reuters visited Chimera’s unit, NC13, a leader in employing UGVs to support battlefield assaults, to understand how the integration of these new weapons is shaping the future of land-based warfare.
In the workshop, a garage space is crammed with experimental drones, some with tracks and others wheeled. One is mounted with a hose for dousing fires; another is equipped with a rack to hold portable rocket launchers.
Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, who commands the Third Army Corps, described the gradual replacement of infantrymen with UGVs as ⁠the next “revolution” in warfare.
Considered one of Ukraine’s premier forces, the corps wants to replace around one third of its frontline troops by the end of the year.
“The West slept through the (drone) revolution in many ways,” he said, adding the ‌infantry now performs just 10 per cent of the tasks it did before the constant aerial threat appeared.

“If the West really wants to not just keep up with the times, but to get slightly ahead, it needs to think about the next revolution,” said Biletskyi.
In front areas such as eastern Ukraine’s “fortress belt” in Donetsk, ground drones can often be seen trundling to ‌and from besieged cities with rations or ammunition, or spiriting away injured troops.
They have performed more than 50,000 logistics and evacuation missions this year, Kyiv’s defence ministry said in June.
Inside a grey ⁠command centre in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the ground drone ⁠operators of NC13, formed last year, are manifesting Biletskyi’s vision in real time, controllers in hand.
Parked in front of screens beaming a black-and-white feed from the battlefield, they sprayed a tree line with a machine gun mounted to a UGV.
Glowing screens and the din of digital chatter over Discord, the messaging ‌platform team members use to communicate, lend the space the air of a gaming club.

Deputy commander “Bar” said his unit runs operations virtually every day.
In one, they loaded three bombs onto a trailer that was pulled onto a bridge used for enemy logistics, then blown up. In another, a machine-gun-mounted UGV suppressed ‌an enemy ‌assault while kamikaze drones rained on them from above.
“To me, it’s a wonderful recipe,” said the 23-year-old former bartender, referring to land and aerial drones working together. At least two prisoners have surrendered to NC13 UGVs, he added.
UGVs have ‌their limits: they struggle with physical obstacles and cannot clear a building or a trench in the way an infantry team can. Nor are they produced widely enough to send in swarms the way aerial drones are, Bar said.
But they ⁠have already begun removing humans from a wide range of dangerous tasks.
“They don’t need food, they don’t need water, they don’t need logs delivered to build shelters,” he said. “Basically, we don’t need to feel for them. It’s a ⁠hunk of iron sent to do the job we used to send soldiers to do.”
Though not a miracle weapon, ground drones are one more step towards the automation of warfare – which also includes AI analysis of battlefield data – that will free up humans to focus on planning and decision making, said Biletskyi.
They could shape new frontline tactics, with commanders more open to daring operations that would ‌have otherwise led to heavy losses.
“War is a creative activity; it’s ‌an art,” he said. “Otherwise, a commander is not called a commander – but a butcher.”
Ukraine’s former top general Oleksandr Syrskyi had faced criticism for what some service members described as a Soviet style of leadership that included a high tolerance for losses.
His younger successor, Mykhailo Drapatyi, is seen as a reformer expected to promote a more troop-friendly approach, partly through embracing new technology.
Biletskyi himself was promoted last month to help oversee the defence of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, handing him a considerable new operational command.
Like most of NC13, deputy commander Bar is a former infantryman familiar with the brutality of ground fighting, having participated in major battles earlier in the war.
If UGVs had been widely used back then, he said, “a great number of my friends would still be alive”.


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Ukraine war

The machines fighting for men on Ukraine’s battlefront

Unmanned ground vehicles roll through central Kyiv during a military display in August. Photo: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service via Reuters

Unmanned ground vehicles being prepared in a workshop. Photo: Reuters

‘Bar’, the deputy commander of NC13. Photo: Reuters

A ground drone in the frontline town of Druzhkivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine. Photo: Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP

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Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney (right) shakes hands with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenski during his visit to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

A man peers from his apartment in a damaged residential building following a Russian missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Ukraine prepares for talks with Trump envoys as Kyiv reels from deadly strikes

A burnt-out car and destroyed buildings following a Russian strike on a warehouse in the village of Myla, west of Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo: AP

Ukrainian air defences fire at a Russian drone above Kyiv during an attack on the Ukrainian capital on Sunday. Photo: AFP

A satellite image shows smoke rising from an Ozon warehouse in Enem, Russia as Ukraine widens a campaign of drone strikes on Russian e-commerce companies. Photo: Vantor via Reuters

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Smoke rises over buildings in downtown Kyiv on Tuesday following Russian air attacks. Photo: AFP

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in Kyiv on Sunday. Photo: AP

President Vladimir Putin greets Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Saturday. Photo: Sputnik via AP

Germany plans anti-sabotage shield after airport drone attack

A police officer in protective clothing works at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Schkeuditz, Germany on August 5 after the police said explosives experts examined a drone near a runway. Photo: Reuters

Police officers search a field at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport following a drone incident. Photo: dpa

Ukraine’s president warns airlines to avoid ‘drone-infested’ Russian airspace

Smoke rises over St Petersburg following a Ukrainian drone attack on a warehouse for online retailer Wildberries on July 24, 2026. Photo: UGC via AP

A residential building in Kyiv damaged by a Russian drone strike. Photo: Reuters

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. Photo AFP

An FP-1 deep-strike drone launches from an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Photo: Reuters

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Ukraine’s military deploys experimental unmanned vehicles to assault positions, resupply forces and rescue wounded


Ukraine’s military deploys experimental unmanned vehicles to assault positions, resupply forces and rescue wounded.


The machines fighting for men on Ukraine’s battlefront

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ukraine’s military deploys experimental unmanned vehicles to assault positions, resupply forces and rescue wounded

Ukraine’s military deploys experimental unmanned vehicles to assault positions, resupply forces and rescue wounded