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.