‘Robots don’t bleed’: Ukraine sends machines into the battlefield in place of human soldiers

Robert Tollast, a land warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, said that the new advances in Ukraine “will fuel a furious debate about whether these robots are the future of warfare or not.” He said it was likely ground drones would struggle to actually hold territory, likening them to using tanks without infantry support. But they are now “regularly saving the lives of soldiers in casualty evacuation, dangerous resupply missions, mine clearance and increasingly, fighting,” he said. “This is critical in a war where aerial drone observation has made movement near the front line almost deadly… even imagining a future where NATO doesn’t fight quite like Ukraine, it’s almost certain these systems will find many uses in other forces,” he added.