Behind the killer robots of Ukraine's new warfare 'revolution'

KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine, Sept 11 - In a cramped workshop near the front line in northeastern Ukraine, military mechanic "Chimera" is helping prepare his unit's robot forces for battle.

Lined up in a row, the four-wheeled unmanned vehicles known as "Hyenas" will crawl toward Russian lines with their payload of explosives and attack an enemy dugout or halt an advance.

Similar models have captured Russian prisoners, said Chimera, 44, who asked to be identified by his call sign.

"Imagine what 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of explosives is like: it's very powerful," he said. "Very powerful."

Workshops like this one, run by Ukraine's Third Army Corps, have sprouted up across the 1,200-km (745-mile) front as Kyiv's outmanned army seeks to gain the technological edge against Russia's unrelenting infantry assaults in the fifth year of war.

Unmanned ground vehicles are a critical new component of Ukraine's strategy to fight smarter by preserving the lives of its troops on a drone-saturated battlefield, where virtually any movement can prove deadly.

Most Ukrainian brigades and regiments feature unmanned systems units which are expanding to include UGVs as part of their forces.

Reuters visited Chimera's unit, NC13, a leader in employing UGVs to support battlefield assaults, to understand how the integration of these new weapons is shaping the future of land-based warfare.

NEW 'REVOLUTION'

In the workshop, a garage space is crammed with experimental drones, some with tracks and others wheeled. One is mounted with a hose for dousing fires; another is equipped with a rack to hold portable rocket launchers.

Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, who commands the Third Army Corps, described the gradual replacement of infantrymen with UGVs as the next "revolution" in warfare.

Considered one of Ukraine's premier forces, the corps wants to replace around one third of its frontline troops by the end of the year.

"The West slept through the (drone) revolution in many ways," he said, adding the infantry now performs just 10% of the tasks it did before the constant aerial threat appeared.

"If the West really wants to not just keep up with the times, but to get slightly ahead, it needs to think about the next revolution," said Biletskyi.

In frontline areas such as eastern Ukraine's "fortress belt" in Donetsk, ground drones can often be seen trundling to and from besieged cities with rations or ammunition, or spiriting away injured troops.

They have performed more than 50,000 logistics and evacuation missions this year, Kyiv's defence ministry said in June.

'HUNKS OF IRON'

Inside a grey command centre in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, the ground drone operators of NC13, formed last year, are manifesting Biletskyi's vision in real time, controllers in hand.

Parked in front of screens beaming a black-and-white feed from the battlefield, they sprayed a tree line with a machinegun mounted to a UGV.

Glowing screens and the din of digital chatter over Discord, the messaging platform team members use to communicate, lend the space the air of a gaming club.

Deputy commander "Bar" said his unit runs operations virtually every day.

In one, they loaded three bombs onto a trailer that was pulled onto a bridge used for enemy logistics, then blown up. In another, a machine-gun-mounted UGV suppressed an enemy assault while kamikaze drones rained on them from above.

"To me, it's a wonderful recipe," said the 23-year-old former bartender, referring to land and aerial drones working together. At least two prisoners have surrendered to NC13 UGVs, he added.

UGVs have their limits: they struggle with physical obstacles and cannot clear a building or a trench in the way an infantry team can. Nor are they produced widely enough to send in swarms the way aerial drones are, Bar said.

But they have already begun removing humans from a wide range of dangerous tasks.

"They don't need food, they don't need water, they don't need logs delivered to build shelters," he said. "Basically, we don't need to feel for them. It's a hunk of iron sent to do the job we used to send soldiers to do."

ROOM FOR 'CREATIVE' COMMANDERS

Though not a miracle weapon, ground drones are one more step toward the automation of warfare — which also includes AI analysis of battlefield data — that will free up humans to focus on planning and decision making, said Biletskyi.

They could shape new frontline tactics, with commanders more open to daring operations that would have otherwise led to heavy losses.

"War is a creative activity; it's an art," he said. "Otherwise, a commander is not called a commander — but a butcher."

Ukraine's former top general Oleksandr Syrskyi had faced criticism for what some service members described as a Soviet style of leadership that included a high tolerance for losses.

His younger successor, Mykhailo Drapatyi, is seen as a reformer expected to promote a more troop-friendly approach, partly through embracing new technology.

Biletskyi himself was promoted last month to help oversee the defence of Ukraine's Donetsk region, handing him a considerable new operational command.

Like most of NC13, deputy commander Bar is a former infantryman familiar with the brutality of ground fighting, having participated in major battles earlier in the war.

If UGVs had been widely used back then, he said, "a great number of my friends would still be alive". REUTERS