In a cramped workshop near the front in northeastern Ukraine, military mechanic “Chimera” is helping prepare his unit’s robot forces for battle.
Lined up in a row, the four-wheeled unmanned vehicles known as “Hyenas” will crawl towards Russian lines with their payload of explosives and attack an enemy dugout or halt an advance.
Similar models have captured Russian prisoners, said Chimera, 44, who asked to be identified by his call sign.
“Imagine what 20kg (44 pounds) of explosives is like: it’s very powerful,” he said. “Very powerful.”
Workshops like this one, run by Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, have sprouted up across the 1,200km (745-mile) front as Kyiv’s outmanned army seeks to gain the technological edge against Russia’s unrelenting infantry assaults in the fifth year of war.
Unmanned ground vehicles are a critical new component of Ukraine’s strategy to fight smarter by preserving the lives of its troops on a drone-saturated battlefield, where virtually any movement can prove deadly.