The world’s first fully robotic assault on an enemy position was, of course, captured on video by a drone hovering above.
President Volodymyr Zelensky recently revealed that the pioneering mission by the Ukrainian army had taken place last year in Kharkiv Oblast. He added that in the last three months Ukraine has conducted 22,000 missions using robotic vehicles. Robots, he stressed, are replacing soldiers on the frontline with Russia.
Video of the assault has been passed to The Spectator by the 3rd Assault Brigade, the unit behind the mission. It shows that a Russian fortified dugout was first attacked by a suicide drone that exploded inside and then a Targan – “cockroach” in Ukrainian – remote control vehicle parked outside and detonated its mine.
When another Targan pulled up, the two Russian soldiers inside the bunker held up a surrender note for the drone hovering above to see. They were then shepherded to Ukrainian lines by the drone. Not a single shot was fired during the entire mission.
The Targan operator involved in the robotic assault said the point of the operation was to minimize casualties after the infantry hadn’t been able to “successfully storm” the position. “We managed to take that tree line, including all the defensive positions, in literally 15 minutes. This was achieved without a single casualty, without a single shot being fired. The deployment of robotic systems significantly lightens, and in some cases completely relieves, the infantry of their duties.”
Mykola “Makar” Zinkevych, commander of the unmanned strike systems unit, said, “More than 50 similar operations have already been carried out, and we continue to increase the pace. The time will come – and we will tell more about them.”
But Oleksandr Sukhoi, an officer in the 1st Unmanned Systems Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, cautioned about overstating the case for unmanned systems. “UGVs can reach positions, but they cannot hold them. Holding ground still requires humans.” He pushed back on the idea that the robotic assault was a turning point in warfare. “It is an evolution: a gradual shift towards unmanned systems taking over the most dangerous and routine tasks.”
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