Robot wars - what an operation in Ukraine tells us about the battlefield of the near future

"I can't go into specifics about the operation or how UFORCE was involved, but we've conducted more than 150,000 successful combat missions since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022."

— Rhiannon Padley , Executive

"I really consider Ukraine to be a major teacher in the future of national defence and armaments. It's an impressive case study in how necessity drives invention."

— Melanie Sisson , Academic

"Militaries adopt AI to speed up processes such as target identification. But delegating life-and-death decisions to machines poses profound ethical and human rights risks."

— Patrick Wilcken , Activist

"The country needs to become an 'AI-first warfighting force.'"

— Pete Hegseth , Executive

"Los ocupantes se rindieron y la operación se llevó a cabo sin infantería y sin bajas por nuestra parte."

— Volodímir Zelenski , Politician

"for the first time, Ukrainian forces managed to take control of an enemy position using drones and unmanned ground vehicles, without infantry involvement."

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy , Politician

"robotic systems carried out 50% more missions than in February."

— Oleksandr Syrskyi , Other

"territory had been captured using just robots and drones"

— Volodymyr Zelensky , Politician

"territory had been captured using just robots and drones"

— Zelensky , Politician

"For the first time in the history of this war, the enemy position was captured exclusively by unmanned platforms – NRK and drones."

— Volodymyr Zelensky , Politician

"In other words, more than 22 thousand lives have been saved – in the most dangerous zones a robot went where a warrior would have gone."

— Volodymyr Zelensky , Politician

"Estos son nuestros sistemas robotizados terrestres. Por primera vez en la historia de esta guerra, una posición enemiga fue tomada exclusivamente con plataformas no tripuladas: sistemas terrestres y drones."

— Volodímir Zelenski , Politician

"Ratel, TerMIT, Ardal, Rys, Zmoky, Protector, Volia y otros sistemas terrestres robotizados han llevado a cabo ya más de 22.000 misiones en el frente en sólo tres meses."

— Volodímir Zelenski , Politician

"For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms — ground systems and drones."

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy , Politician

"In other words, lives were saved more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a soldier."

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy , Politician

"It is a 'cheap, fast, and effective' weapon with 'enormous potential.'"

— Oleksandr , Other

"In the coming months, if current technological advancements continue, ground robots will allow for the withdrawal of up to a third of the infantry."

— Andrii Biletski , Politician

"Ground robots will likely be vital for Ukraine in 2026, but they are not miracle weapons nor can they serve as a panacea for Kyiv’s personnel problems."

— David Kirichenko , Academic