Robot Soldiers: Ground Drones On The Ukrainian Front Lines

As Russian forces continue their assault on Pokrovsk, some Ukrainian units are using ground drones to help defend the embattled frontline city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps has posted video on Facebook showing troops in Pokrovsk working with ground drones as they defend the city, which was once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian military.

Defending Donetsk With Drones
Small, rugged, and often armed, these remote-controlled vehicles have become an essential part of Ukraine’s defense across the Donetsk region. Used for reconnaissance, resupply, and direct assaults, the machines maneuver through areas too dangerous for soldiers or tanks to enter.

Not far from the front lines, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service was given an exclusive tour by the commander of Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, which showed a variety of ground drones that are currently in action.

“This is our combat ‘junkyard rig.’ It went out last night and only returned this morning. It’s fitted with a machine gun and a few hundred rounds,” said the battalion commander who goes by the code name Elektryk.

“We used it to kill the enemy, right up close. They come and we open fire and leave. And we did it more than once,” he said.

Not every ground drone mission ends successfully.

“Sometimes it arrives and is quickly destroyed. And sometimes it lives for hundreds of kilometers,” the commander explains. “Yesterday, one of ours went to pick up a wounded soldier but didn’t make it. It was spotted by more than five flying [first-person view] drones and was destroyed by the sixth.”

Multiple Skills, Multiple Roles

On the front lines, soldiers modify and rebuild these machines for multiple roles, from attack platforms to medevac vehicles capable of retrieving the wounded or the dead without human assistance.

“It arrives on its own, loads itself up, and leaves on its own,” said Elektryk. “It’s a unique thing.”

Though the development of ground drones in Ukraine began more than a decade ago, Russia’s full-scale invasion has rapidly accelerated their evolution.

Meanwhile, Russian soldiers have been seen using an assortment of improvised vehicles of their own as they advanced on Pokrovsk along roads covered by thick fog.

A video published by Russian war bloggers on Telegram on November 11 showed what was said to be Russian soldiers on motorcycles and cars and other vehicles rolling into Pokrovsk.

Many vehicles were missing doors and windows and some Telegram users said it looked like a scene from the 1979 action film Mad Max, which unfolds in a postapocalyptic landscape.

Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as Pokrovsk but was not able to independently verify the date of the footage.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post on November 11 that the situation “remains difficult” and that bad weather was favoring advancing Russian troops. Ukraine’s military said about 300 Russian soldiers were now inside Pokrovsk, which Moscow has been trying to capture for more than a year./rferl/