CNN ONLINE

There is a whirr, a burst of dust, a pause as the image stabilizes—and then a blast. Dozens of miles away, Ukrainian veterans of Avdiivka and Bakhmut direct a new kind of battle. Seated at computer stations, they command missions of drones and robots, striking Russian positions without a single soldier on the ground.

Ukraine, strained by manpower shortages and uncertain US support, has shifted much of its war effort to unmanned systems. Robots, drones, and remotely piloted tanks now give Kyiv a fragile but vital edge against Russia’s larger forces. In April, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the first capture of a Russian position using only robots and drones. Since January, unmanned machines carried out 22,000 missions.

Survival drives innovation. Ukrainian units report that Russian prisoners call these four‑wheeled, bomb‑laden robots “silent death.” They are almost undetectable until within 10 metres—already inside their blast radius. In one mission, the first robot struggles over debris before detonating, its explosion captured as a white flare on drone footage. A second follows, distracting Russians while 4 more robots manoeuvre behind enemy lines.

The calculations are stark. Over 164 assaults, the NC13 unit of the Third Assault Brigade estimates it would have needed 2,300 troops to achieve the same effect. Half would likely have been killed or wounded. Instead, the robots have saved an estimated thousand Ukrainian lives.

From livestreams, commanders now wage battles they cannot touch, but whose impact is devastating. Ukraine’s embrace of unmanned warfare underscores both its desperation and ingenuity, reshaping conflict into a struggle where machines fight in place of men.