Three Russian soldiers, one covered in blood, emerge from a building and surrender to an armed ground robot. This is not the first such surrender, but seems to be the first seen on video. Armed robots are becoming increasingly common, and as a new report from the Jamestown Foundation notes, Ukraine is now the world leader in making and using them.
Robots are already indispensable for both front-line resupply and casualty evacuation in Ukraine. This year will see them used increasingly for fire support, engaging in direct combat for both offensive and defensive operations with heavy machineguns and other weaponry.
Ramping Up The Robots
Remotely-operated ground robots, known in the West as Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and in Ukraine as Ground Robotic Complexes (“Nazemnyi Robotychnyi Kompleks” or NRC) have been present in small numbers since the start of the war. Initially many of these were imported models but now the vast majority are made locally. According to the Jamestown report, 99% of UGVs currently used are produced in Ukraine.
Production has scaled fast. From hundreds of units in 2024, Ukraine aimed to produce 15,000 UGVs in 2025 and over 20,000 this year. There are at least 200 different models in use from some 40 Ukrainian manufacturers.
Much of the rapid progress in this area has been driven by close co-operation between robot makers and frontline troops. The engineers aim to produce machines which exactly meet the requirements of the unit they are working with, and feedback from combat is incorporated into design modifications and upgrades in a cycle that is usually a matter of weeks.
It is also fast because unlike other military vehicles, robots are small and easily assembled from commercial components. They typically range in size from shopping trolley to golf buggy. The armed versions, often made by attaching a turret to a logistics robot, usually carry a 7.62mm or .50 Cal machine gun. Some cost as little as $5,000, but price tags are usually in the tens of thousands. The DevDroid pictured above is quoted at $26-$29k depending on version.
This is a sharp contrast to UGV development in the U.S., which has far greater budgets a much deeper technology base, and much longer time scales. Back in 1985 the U.S. Army tested a remotely operated vehicle called Prowler armed with machineguns, and by 1987 the Teleoperated Mobile Anti-Armor Platform was launching anti-tank missiles. Howevert, these developments led nowhere.
Similarly, the U.S. SWORDS armed robot made good progress and was even deployed to Iraq in 2008 but never used in action. The U.S. military has plenty of small robots, as well as remotely-operated weapon stations. Putting the two together has so far been too much of a challenge.
The U.S. Army’s most recent Robotic Combat Vehicle program, which had been making slow progress since 2019, was scrapped last summer apparently due to costs.
“We need robotic combat vehicles, but…We don’t want to down select just to one vendor and pay almost $3 million per copy,” an Army official told Breaking Defense. Decades of research and development have come to nothing.
The Army has issued a Request For Information with a view to restarting the program, looking for an affordable, attritable UGV which can “fight alongside infantry and destroy enemy armored personnel carriers, trucks, and troops.”
Which is exactly what Ukraine’s UGVs are doing right now.
Fighting Robots In Action
There have been demonstration videos of armed robots blazing away with machineguns ever since the days of Prowler, and both Ukraine and Russia regularly produce imagers of armed robots on testing grounds. But actual combat footage has been virtually unknown – until now.
In 2024 we saw the first video of an armed UGV leading an attack on Russian positions, and a few months later Ukraine carried out the first ever successful robots-only assault with a mixture of drones and UGVs.
In November Ukraine released a first-person view video of an encounter between one of their UGVs and a Russian MT-LB personnel carrier; the Russians do not ever seem to have spotted the robot that was firing at them. This month we saw what appears to be the first ever video of an operator engaging infantry, using a .50 Cal machinegun on a DevDroid UGV.
The robots are taking over defensive tasks as well, holding the line in the place of foot soldiers. In December, Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade claimed that a DevDroid, again armed with a .50 Cal, had fought off Russian troops for 45 days. The machine was operated remotely from cover and returned every 48 hours for recharging and reloading. We do not know how effective its fire was, but we do know that the position was held against multiple Russian assault with zero Ukrainian casualties.
“Only the UGV system was present at the position,” commander Mykola Zinkevych told Ukrainian media. “This was the core concept.”
The goal is to cut casualties and, ultimately, to reduce the need for foot soldiers. There is of course lively debate on this matter, with some commentators declaring that robots will never replace boots on the ground. But while existing UGVs obviously have major limitations, it seems they are already able to carry out some of the roles for which infantry was previously essential – like taking prisoners.
Come With Me If You Want To Live
The Russians who surrendered to an UGV seem to be slightly confused. In another reported surrender the Russians were said to be “very surprised” at being captured by a robot.
It makes perfect sense to have UGVs at the lead, especially for accepting surrender. Ukraine previously pioneered the technique of drone-enabled surrender, using quadcopters with microphones to lead Russians soldiers to safe areas, ensure they were disarmed and take them prisoner. A face-to-face encounter comes with the risk of a fake surrender in which someone waits until their captor gets close before pulling a gun or a grenade – this has happened in Ukraine. Remote surrender means there is no risk to the captors and nobody need to make split-second life-or-death decisions.
UGVs will also impact enemy morale. When your side is taking casualties but your opponent literally does not bleed or feel pain and cannot die, then fighting may seem futile. Especially when given the option of a safe and easy surrender.
Engagements between UGVs and ground forces are only just starting and it is impossible to predict how this type of warfare will evolve. It looks like most UGVs are knocked out by FPV drones., and many UGVs already carry jammers. How robot-fights-robot technology plays out is likely to be a major factor in shaping future wars.
