Ukraine is combating Russia’s infiltration groups by putting weapons stations on ground robots and turning them into “small tanks,” a Ukrainian arms maker told Business Insider.
Frontline Robotics said Ukrainian soldiers are looking for more ways to strike Russian positions from safer distances, including by mounting weapons on ground robots that can drive toward enemy lines and attack.
The company makes its “Buria” turret, an autonomous remote weapon station that can be placed in a fixed position on a tripod and fire grenades or a machine gun. Mykyta Rozhkov, Frontline Robotics’ chief business development officer, described it as “basically a metal robotic arm for a grenade launcher” or another weapon.
At the start of last year, the main use was placing it in a hidden position where it could fire on the enemy and blunt Russian attacks. But now, the weapons station is being used on ground robots, “so it can be mobile and be used as a small tank,” Rozhkov said.
“Right now we put our robotic arm on the robotic vehicle and then the two operators, 20, 40, 50 kilometers out of the zone, are driving it through the forest lines and trying to stop these small groups penetrating even further into our defense,” he added.
The rapidly changing battlefield drove the company to transform its stationary turret system into something mobile.
Frontline Robotics makes small changes to its products up to 20 times a month and typically makes major updates to products every six months, relying on regular input from soldiers.
“We don’t even have to ask them for the feedback. It goes directly 24/7 into our inbox,” Rozhkov said.
Other Ukrainian companies report a similar flow of feedback and a swift update pace, an approach NATO countries are trying to learn from. Rozhkov described Ukrainian manufacturers as having an “unfair advantage” because of their proximity to the battlefield and its fighters.
These infiltration groups have been a key tactic for Russia. Small groups of soldiers creep across the front lines in a bid to avoid being spotted by drones, aiming to take Ukrainian positions or disrupt Ukraine’s defenses.
The front lines are so saturated with drones and so dangerous that there is what officials describe as a “kill zone” around them.
That has made large troop movements much harder and turned small infiltration teams into one of Russia’s main ways to advance. Ukraine is trying to stop them without exposing more soldiers to threats within the zone.
Tanks and armored vehicles have struggled for both Ukraine and Russia, in part because of how easily they can be spotted by drones. It’s one of the reasons Ukraine wants to use ground robots and drones. If they are destroyed, they are cheaper and faster to replace than armored vehicles, and no human lives are lost.
Ground robots are being used to evacuate wounded soldiers, to carry supplies, to lay and to remove mines, and to attack.
Oleksandr Yabchanka, the head of the robotic systems for Ukraine’s Da Vinci Wolves Battalion, previously told Business Insider that robots equipped with weapons are valued because they can do things that can’t be done “even by the bravest infantry people.”
While there is proven value in fixed turrets, automatic weapon systems that can move are particularly useful.
Yabchanka said armed robots are especially valuable when they can move: They can enter Russian trenches, close in on enemy soldiers, and keep operating under heavy fire. Because Russian troops often shoot back at the source of an attack, a robot that can change positions without exposing Ukrainian soldiers is a major advantage.
Frontline Robotics isn’t alone. Other Ukrainian defense companies are taking a similar approach, putting grenade launchers and machine guns on ground robots so soldiers can attack Russian forces from a distance.
Ukrainian robotic systems maker DevDroid equips ground robots with the ability to launch grenades and fire machine guns because it can “save people’s lives,” Oleg Fedoryshyn, its director of R&D, told Business Insider. Soldiers can attack Russia with powerful weapons without needing to get close to the target or carry the weapons themselves.
Ground robots are a relatively new technology on the battlefields of Ukraine, but their use is growing rapidly. Ukraine’s defense minister said earlier this month that the military had carried out more than 50,000 logistics and evacuation missions with the help of ground robots since the start of the year. That’s a huge increase from the 2,000 missions that officials had said the robots carried out in the six months leading up to December.
The tech has recently seen new battlefield firsts, like Ukraine capturing a Russian position for the first time with just aerial drones and ground robots, without using any infantry. Robots have also been able to get Russian soldiers to surrender to them.
Ukraine wants to use unmanned systems like aerial drones and robots as much as it can to keep its soldiers safer and farther back from the fighting. Rozhkov said that the aim is to defend areas “without humans.”
“And this is really our important mission in order to keep our soldiers safe,” he said.
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