The Ukrainian military captured a Russian position using only ground robots and aerial drones — completely unassisted by any infantry, for the first time in the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced.
No lives were lost when the robot force went into highly dangerous enemy-occupied territory and forced the soldiers there to surrender, he said in a video address to defense workers this week, without revealing additional details about the mission.
“The future is already on the front line — and Ukraine is building it. These are our ground robotic systems,” Zelensky said, according to Business Insider.
Over the last three months, Ukrainian ground robots have carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front lines, according to the president.
“In other words, over 22,000 times, lives were saved,” he said.
“This is about high technology protecting the highest value — human life,” he continued.
Ukraine reportedly has used a record number of land robots to fend off invading Russian forces, as the war-torn country continues to ramp up its use of killer droids on the battlefield.
“The front line is more like ‘Terminator,’” a drone operator with Ukraine’s 25th Airborne Brigade, named Bambi, told the Guardian earlier this month. “A land robot arrives at your position and there is nothing you can do about it.
“You can shoot a person in the chest and they stop firing. If you shoot a ground robot, it doesn’t feel pain.”
Kyiv first deployed ground robots to the battlefield in 2024 and in the past two years, the use of robots shot up exponentially — with production increasing nearly sixfold in 2025, emerging as the fastest growing part in Ukraine’s defense technology sector.
