this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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Victor Pavlov showed off Ukraine’s newest and most versatile weapon: a battery-powered land robot.

The unmanned ground vehicles come in various shapes and sizes. One runs on caterpillar tracks and resembles a roofless milk float. Another has wheels and antennas. A third carries anti-tank mines. Since spring 2024 their use has grown exponentially.

“This is what modern warfare looks like. Armies everywhere will have to robotise,” said Pavlov, a lieutenant with Ukraine’s 3rd army corps.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is now in its fifth year and the conflict – Europe’s biggest since 1945 – has seen an astonishing transformation of battlefield weapons and tactics. The war has become a technological contest, fought not with expensive tanks but with cheap and expendable drones that can deliver bombs with deadly accuracy.

Ukraine’s drone expertise is now highly sought after amid the US-Israeli war against Iran. Last week Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed 10-year defence agreements with several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to provide them with low-cost Ukrainian interceptors. They can shoot down long-range kamikaze Shahed drones, used by Tehran in its attacks on its neighbours, and by Moscow.

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[–] perestroika@slrpnk.net 7 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

These "robots" are actually ground drones, and the term "robot" is being widely misused.

They can't identify the allegiance of a soldier. The operator will see, consider and then shoot. It's better than going out there and getting shot at.

If you don't know the state of the art, it's easy to think they are robots, but they have the same autonomy level as an FPV drone. They are automated to the degree that you can tell them "drive 50 clicks north-east and stop".

Really advanced versions will have a local algorithm to track and shoot an aerial target, once the operator decides that it's a target. Because in air defense, latency means losing.

However, swarming weapons are a cause for concern in near future, because in those cases, one soldier may end up controlling 100+ weapons and likely won't have a good overview of the situation.