The Killer Robots Are Coming. The Battlefield Will Never Look the Same.

The robots charged into battle through a valley in eastern Ukraine, driving over grass toward a Russian position. Essentially little green wagons, they looked like something you might buy at a garden store to move bags of soil around. But each carried 66 pounds of explosives.

As the remotely controlled vehicles approached the enemy soldiers, an aerial drone flew in and dropped a bomb to help clear a path. One of the robots then rushed in and blew itself up, while the others held back, monitoring the position.

A sheet of cardboard appeared above a trench. “We want to surrender,” it read. Two Russian soldiers then stepped out and walked to Ukrainian lines to be taken as prisoners of war.

The assault, captured on video last summer, shows how Ukraine is pioneering a new way of war, its leaders say.

Kyiv is trying to turn more of the fighting over to unmanned systems as it struggles with troop shortages and seeks ways to defend itself without risking heavy losses of soldiers. The attack last year, which took place in the Kharkiv region, demonstrates that the Ukrainian military can now seize Russian positions solely with automated weapons, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this past week.

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