{"id":9813,"date":"2026-04-16T02:48:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/russians-will-surrender-to-robots-russian-robots-wont\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:48:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:48:55","slug":"russians-will-surrender-to-robots-russian-robots-wont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/russians-will-surrender-to-robots-russian-robots-wont\/","title":{"rendered":"Russians will surrender to robots. Russian robots won\u2019t."},"content":{"rendered":"
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NATO is studying how to use ground and air robots to replace human soldiers in assaults, something Ukraine has been doing for more than a year.\u00a0 But that hasn\u2019t stopped Russia\u2019s continuous assault with its own, increasingly autonomous one-way attack drones.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a social-media splash with a video describing a historic first from last July: a skirmish in which Russian troops surrendered to Ukrainian robots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future is already on the front line\u2014and Ukraine is building it,\u201d Zelenskyy said in the video, adding that Ukrainian robotics companies \u201chave already carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front in just three months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the Ukrainian president offered far fewer details than did Ukraine\u2019s 3rd Assault Brigade in its own July 2025 post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEnemy fortifications were attacked\u201d by first-person-view aerial drones and ground robots armed with explosives and made by Nazemnyi Robotychnyi Kompleks, the post said. \u201cThe next robot was already approaching the destroyed dugout when the enemy, in order to avoid being blown up, announced surrender. The occupiers who survived were taken to our lines by \u2018birds\u2019 [aerial drones] and, according to the regulations, taken prisoner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe operation was carried out without infantry and without losses on our side,\u201d it said. \u201cThe occupiers surrendered to the ground robots of the Third Assault!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s ground-robot game advanced quickly in the following months, said Olena Kryzshanivska, a senior editor at the NATO Association of Canada who first relayed the news to English-language audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready\u2026[by the] beginning of this year, we saw several documented cases when UGVs [unmanned ground vehicles] were used for strike missions. They were either delivering grenades [or] they were sometimes \u2026 attacking trenches, attacking Russian troops,\u201d Kryzshanivska said in February during a podcast with CNAS adjunct senior fellow Sam Bendett.<\/p>\n

That sort of combined robotic fast maneuver is one of the ways Ukraine is forcing a reconsideration of decades of military doctrine, and NATO is taking notice. In February, its Allied Command Transformation announced the extension of a study on Force Lethality Enhancement to build out \u201ca few practical force options and test them against realistic scenarios to see what works, and what it would take to use them on operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another alliance effort to integrate ground robots, part of the multidomain Task Force X, is being led by Brig. Gen. Chris Gent, NATO deputy chief of staff transformation and integration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Venture capitalists are taking note as well. Eric Brock of Ondas Capital told Defense One <\/em>in January that his firm is investing in \u201cground robots that are tailored towards defense and homeland security but also critical infrastructure protection in certain places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest constraint in using first-person-view drones is that an operator can generally fly just one at a time. But the drone can fly itself to waypoints, loiter in the air, and reconnect after brief communications interruptions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ground robots, by contrast, need constant attention because navigation remains a technical challenge, John Hardie, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told reporters in February. And UGV operators must also stay in frequent contact with the operators of the aerial drones above.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy understanding is that they’ve experimented with autonomous navigation, but it\u2019s especially difficult with [unmanned ground vehicles] for that to be reliable. So I don’t think they’re there yet,\u201d Hardie said.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has also been hunting for alternatives to GPS, which is jammable. Since 2023, it has been experimenting with visual- and terrain-matching systems and other AI-powered ideas for long-range navigation, Hardie said.<\/p>\n

Russia, too, has carried out robotic operations in large volumes. But they\u2019re limited to strikes with one-way attack drones like Shaheds and, occasionally evacuation of the wounded, not taking positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Lancet drones produced by Russia\u2019s ZALA company are guided on final approach to their targets by matching camera imagery to preloaded maps. It works well enough\u2014because Russian forces place less of a premium on collateral damage or striking the right target.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Ukrainians, the goal is greater autonomy, allowing one operator to preside over fleets of ground and air robots but with confidence that they will perform the mission assigned, hit the target that they\u2019re supposed to hit and not simply whatever happens to be there when the drone finally arrives. It\u2019s the same sort of complex multi-drone swarm capability that the Pentagon is seeking to develop.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian Air Force Capt. Max Maslii, deputy chief of staff for the 96th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, described that goal as a departure from the way Russia operates \u201cautonomous\u201d drones like the Lancet, as isolated flying bombs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under the \u201cnew paradigm,\u201d Maslii told Defense One<\/em>, the drones would be able to \u201cfind the \u2026 more efficient way to accomplish this mission, together with such machines.\u201d At that point, he said, operators wouldn\u2019t be stuck piloting one drone at a time. They would work more like technicians managing a larger, more complex system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job will be \u2026 to produce a lot of drones, to put them in the proper place, to take care [of] the systems that manage those drones, and just to, you know, turn them on.\u201d\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n