Ukraine’s military launched a fully robotic amphibious assault, using a naval drone to transport a ground robot into Russian-occupied territory.
Ukraine said the robotic deployment was the first known combat mission of its type. It’s the latest example of how uncrewed systems can be employed in highly dangerous situations and environments instead of troops, keeping humans out of harm’s way.
On Monday, Ukraine’s 123rd Separate Territorial Defense Brigade announced it had executed the mission, revealing that it had remotely guided a naval drone across the Black Sea to a position behind Russian lines on the Kinburn Spit at the end of Ukraine’s Kinburn Peninsula. The peninsula is directly west of Kherson. Ukrainian officials have called this area a key strategic foothold for Russian forces to restrict maritime access to the Black Sea.
When the Ukrainian naval drone reached the coast, it deployed a ground robot, an uncrewed ground vehicle. Per footage shared by the 123rd on Telegram, the ground drone was wielding a mounted machine gun. Once it reached the shore, the drone began firing shots at an unidentified target. Ukraine didn’t identify which robotic platforms were involved in the amphibious assault, their capabilities, or the mission objective.
The brigade said in its statement that this was “the first known combat mission of this format in the world,” adding that “the ground robotic complex was delivered to the enemy shore using an unmanned maritime platform, landed on occupied Ukrainian territory, and employed to accomplish a combat task.”
The use of drones for this amphibious assault is a significant development in the use of uncrewed systems in the war. Ukraine has used naval drones to target Russian Black Sea Fleet ships and uncrewed ground vehicles for front-line missions that are too deadly for human soldiers. Now, it’s merging the two, as it has with naval drones and first-person-view drones, among other uncrewed systems.
Ground robots, or uncrewed ground vehicles, are fast becoming the face of Ukrainian battlefield logistics and missions. As mines, artillery, and drone-saturated skies threaten troops, Ukraine has focused on building more drone vehicles that can be remotely operated to transport ammunition and supplies, evacuate wounded troops, lay mines, launch other drones, or attack.
Ukraine said in April it cleared Russian-held territory using only ground robots and drones for the first time.
The rising reliance on these systems is changing how Ukrainian drone manufacturers are building new vehicles. They’re focusing on low-cost systems that can be deployed in large numbers should they be targeted and destroyed.
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