Humanoid Robot, public domain courtesy of DARPA via Wikimedia 

Per The Guardian

The frontline is like Terminator

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“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.

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The Kremlin’s war has transformed Kyiv into a centre for the development of modern unmanned weapons. There is a unique ecosystem, where engineers design new products and frontline soldiers give instant feedback. Manufacturers then scale up supplies, building ground vehicles, anti-Shahed interceptors and pioneering sea drones.

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The latest models can mine and de-mine, lay barbed wire, and tow and retrieve damaged and burned-out vehicles. Pavlov said his company lost around three robots a day to Russian aerial attacks – an attrition rate of 25%. “This is a small price to pay when you consider that we are saving the lives of our infantry,” he said.

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Last summer for the first time in the history of warfare Russian soldiers even surrendered to an armed ground robot. The soldiers – one covered in blood – emerged from a wrecked building. Their position had previously come under sustained Ukrainian fire. The 3rd army corps said it was able to deploy robots to retake the area in a “well-planned offensive action”.

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Andriy Biletsky, the 3rd Corps’ commander, said new tactical approaches would determine which side prevailed ultimately. He said Ukraine was on the “verge of another revolution”, alongside the ongoing revolution in aerial drones. He predicted: “Ground-based robotic system will radically change the battlefield and replace a significant share of soldiers, both in terms of logistics and combat use.

Slava Ukraine!