Ukraine’s innovative use of ground drones on the battlefield

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0:50I'm Greg Dixon. Drones have radically changed how wars are fought. And one of the conflicts on the cutting edge of that transformation is the full-scale war Russia launched in Ukraine more than four years ago. Even though Ukraine's forces are outnumbered and the country is receiving far less support than it once did from the U.S., they're turning the tide against Russia, seizing the advantage. They've done this by revolutionizing their use of drones. And the latest innovation is in unmanned drones that operate not from the sky, but in high-stakes missions on the ground. NPR's Joanna Kakisis introduces us to one of Ukraine's ground drone units.

1:32We are inside a hut in eastern Ukraine, not far from the front line. Next to a grandma couch with plush flowers, six men in army green t-shirts are huddled around three computers. They look like middle-aged gamers with their handheld devices, but they are soldiers in a rapidly evolving war using robots. One soldier gives his name as Oleksii. He asks, have you seen the movie Terminator, you know, with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Because this is now a machine war. The computers have split screens showing live footage of what look like flatbed trucks about the size of bumper cars. These are unmanned ground vehicles, battery-operated, remote-controlled land robots with cameras.

2:25And in Ukraine's arsenal of drones, they are another innovation helping the country hold its own against Russia. This is the land robot safe. Okay, okay. The soldiers controlling these land robots are part of the ground drone unit of Ukraine's 93rd Brigade. The unit is called Alter Ego. NPR is identifying Ukrainian soldiers by first name or call sign at the request of the military, which cites security concerns. Alter Ego's commander goes by the call sign electrician. He points to the screen showing the two unmanned ground vehicles.

3:04So one is transporting ammunition, he says, and the other has food and water for our soldiers. The drones roll past burnt-out vehicles on dirt roads that are constantly attacked by Russia. There could be mines, enemy drones, anything along the way, he says. Ukraine's military has been shifting some of the most dangerous front-line operations from humans to drones, logistics, evacuating the wounded and the bodies of the dead, and even conducting assaults on enemy positions. Ukraine's defense ministry says the country is making 25 ,000 ground drones in the first half of this year. More than double produced all of last year, when ground drone use began in earnest.

3:54Electrician says his unit sends the ground drones to dangerous positions deep inside the front line's kill zone. Surveillance and strike drones fly overhead. Anyone or anything inside is attacked. Alter Ego's ground drones are stored in a fenced-in courtyard a short drive away from that hut with the computers. Soldiers are fixing a few drones in a workshop. The rest are lined up along a fence, as if they are on guard duty. The soldiers call this place the zoo. It's a robot zoo. Alisher, another soldier from Alter Ego, shows us a ground robot that's just returned from a mission. It brought back a valuable aerial drone called a Vampire from the kill zone.

4:39The Vampire is often used to bomb Russian positions at night. In this case, Alisher says, the Vampire was delivering supplies and had to land in an open field. Sending two or three people to retrieve it was not an option, Alisher says. An open field is death, so a ground drone was sent instead.

5:04In today's warfare, he says, the ground drone is like an ordinary infantryman who does everything. Strikes, logistics, transport, evacuations, missions Alisher used to carry out himself.

5:20Back in 2023, he says, his unit was ambushed and forced to retreat. And Alisher carried a 260-pound wounded soldier on his back. He says he got six herniated disks and barely made it out alive. When I saw how evacuations could be done with a ground drone, he says, I started crying. Now he sends ground drones to rescue the wounded, who crawl onto the drone, then lie down while it takes them to safety. The unit has also used ground drones in assaults on Russian enemy positions. Ground drones drove Russian troops out of two occupied villages last year.

6:04Unit member Fransouz says we set up two ground drones with machine guns, then drove right into the villages to draw out enemy fire. The Russians revealed their positions, so our forces knew exactly where to strike. If this had been done with people instead of drones, he says, well, things might have turned out differently. There would have been casualties. Ukraine's military is smaller than Russia's and chronically understaffed. Ukrainian commanders say ground drones are one way to equalize this imbalance. We drive hundreds of miles to meet another ground robot unit that has pioneered the use of this technology.

6:44In a plywood hut that smells of sawdust, we meet clatoon commander of Lodika, who is with the 3rd Army Corps. Vladika tells us his team used ground drones last summer to surround Russian troops in a dugout as aerial strike drones flew overhead. They understood that they would be smoked out in the end, Vladika says. So at some point they found some piece of cardboard and wrote on it that they wanted to surrender. And the Russians did to the land robot, a first in warfare, Ukraine says. It was really the most comical situation, Vladika says. We watched as the Russians circled around the land drone, waving the sign.

7:32A bearish soldier called Himera joins in. He runs the ground drone unit's workshop. Himera says he prepares the drones for combat, including their wheels, which must roll through eastern Ukraine's muddy fields.

7:53It's a mix of clay, black soil and grass, he says, and it turns into something like cement. Himera says he is constantly trying to make his unit's ground drones faster, stronger and more lethal. Russia has its own ground robot system called the Courier, which is used mainly for logistics. And, Hemera says, the Russians are developing new ground drones.

8:20They are constantly watching us and learning from us, he says. I've seen photos and videos of their robots. They look strikingly similar to our own. They are directly copying us. This robotic arms race makes Hemera nervous. But he says Ukraine doesn't have much of a choice. It's either adapt, he says, or die. Joanna Kikisis, NPR News, reporting from eastern Ukraine.

8:51That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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