Sep 27, 2026 · 20 min · 7 segments
Go to https://www.artwine.com to get your limited bottle of Ukrainian sparkling wine, rescued from the cellars of Bakhmut. Now available in the US, UK, and EU. Must be 21+…
Paul WarburgHost
As they sat entrenched in positions that they had become comfortable in, the Russian forces were relying on their ground defenses to keep themselves relatively safe, with their eyes on the sky looking for enemy drones as the main potential threat.
Then, the ground robots appeared, somehow having avoided the trenches, the mines, the barbed wire, and all the other traps in their way, completely disrupting the enemy.
The robots dropped from the air and went straight at the Russian positions, throwing the Russian soldiers into disarray, a situation that could then be taken advantage of by other ground robots.
These robots sometimes ended up taking positions themselves, other times they led the enemy to surrender, and other times they just overwhelmed the Russian forces by giving them something more that they had to think about, making Ukraine's more traditional tactics dramatically more effective once they were layered in on top of the overwhelmed troops.
And before long, the regular Ukrainian troops came in, claiming the territory that had been secured by the droids.
In one fell swoop, Ukraine had eliminated the advantages provided to their enemies inside of their dug-in positions.
To achieve the same strategic objectives for themselves earlier in this war, Russia had to rely on simply overwhelming Ukrainian positions with excessive manpower, resulting in mass casualties and only a slow crawl forward.
Ukraine just replicated the same tactical successes, but at only a fraction of the cost.
Not even because of what's already happened, but because of where the trend is clearly going.
at a time when that opinion was unfashionable, we were talking about how Ukraine could one day, if they were simply given enough time, use robots to do the dangerous combat jobs that everyone was expecting the infantry to do.
And when that day came, it wouldn't matter so much that Ukraine was a much smaller country than Russia, nor would it especially matter that Ukraine now had to go on the offensive to take territory back that had required hundreds of thousands of casualties for the Russians to capture in the first place.
Two years ago, that narrative was laughed out of many rooms, as desperate coping at best.
I can still remember the response videos that pro-Russian bloggers made to mock me, trying to throw me off balance.
And I can remember the confidence of the mocking comments saying that powerful Ukrainian ground robotics were just a propaganda narrative, to make us all feel better about how bad we were losing.
least of all the pro-Russian audience, or the Russian soldier encountering a Ukrainian robot on the battlefield.
So let's talk about how far Ukraine's ground robots have come, and the new opportunities that have just recently been unlocked.
As they sat entrenched in positions that they had become comfortable in, the Russian forces were relying on their ground defenses to keep themselves relatively safe, with their eyes on the sky looking for enemy drones as the main potential threat.
Then, the ground robots appeared, somehow having avoided the trenches, the mines, the barbed wire, and all the other traps in their way, completely disrupting the enemy.
The robots dropped from the air and went straight at the Russian positions, throwing the Russian soldiers into disarray, a situation that could then be taken advantage of by other ground robots.
These robots sometimes ended up taking positions themselves, other times they led the enemy to surrender, and other times they just overwhelmed the Russian forces by giving them something more that they had to think about, making Ukraine's more traditional tactics dramatically more effective once they were layered in on top of the overwhelmed troops.
And before long, the regular Ukrainian troops came in, claiming the territory that had been secured by the droids.
In one fell swoop, Ukraine had eliminated the advantages provided to their enemies inside of their dug-in positions.
To achieve the same strategic objectives for themselves earlier in this war, Russia had to rely on simply overwhelming Ukrainian positions with excessive manpower, resulting in mass casualties and only a slow crawl forward.
Ukraine just replicated the same tactical successes, but at only a fraction of the cost.
Not even because of what's already happened, but because of where the trend is clearly going.
at a time when that opinion was unfashionable, we were talking about how Ukraine could one day, if they were simply given enough time, use robots to do the dangerous combat jobs that everyone was expecting the infantry to do.
And when that day came, it wouldn't matter so much that Ukraine was a much smaller country than Russia, nor would it especially matter that Ukraine now had to go on the offensive to take territory back that had required hundreds of thousands of casualties for the Russians to capture in the first place.
Two years ago, that narrative was laughed out of many rooms, as desperate coping at best.
I can still remember the response videos that pro-Russian bloggers made to mock me, trying to throw me off balance.
And I can remember the confidence of the mocking comments saying that powerful Ukrainian ground robotics were just a propaganda narrative, to make us all feel better about how bad we were losing.
least of all the pro-Russian audience, or the Russian soldier encountering a Ukrainian robot on the battlefield.
So let's talk about how far Ukraine's ground robots have come, and the new opportunities that have just recently been unlocked.
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