KYIV — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian army captured a Russian position using only ground robotic systems and unmanned aerial vehicles.
“For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms — ground systems and drones,” Zelenskyy said on Monday.
“The occupiers surrendered, and the operation was carried out without infantry and without losses on our side,” Zelenskyy added.
The Ukrainian army has been scaling up the use of ground robotic systems, currently piloted by humans from a safe distance, to perform different assault operations and pull out wounded troops from the kill zone, where human evacuation teams could be destroyed by drones.
In January, Ukrainian ground robot Droid TW-7.62, equipped with artificial intelligence elements for autonomous detection, capture and tracking of targets, took three Russian soldiers as POWs, Ukrainian defense manufacturer Devdroid said.
Zelenskyy said that in the first three months of 2026, ground robotic systems performed more than 22,000 missions on Ukraine’s front line.
“In other words, lives were saved more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a warrior. This is about high technology protecting the highest value — human life,” Zelenskyy said.
