Captured Russian soldiers have a rule for one stretch of the Kupiansk front: go anywhere, but not there.
That stretch is the “safety corridor” the “Orion” unit of Ukraine’s Offensive Guard brigade “Pomsta” says it has built for its ground robots. The zone is so lethal that, by the unit’s count, 88% of attacking Russians are killed before they reach their positions, and Russian armor cannot get within 25 kilometers, the military outlet ArmyInform reports.
Behind that shield, the unit says its ground robots have run dozens of fully autonomous missions through the most dangerous ground on the axis, with a success rate of 99.57%. The results made Orion the top-ranked unit for effectiveness on the South-Kupiansk axis in September within Ukraine’s battlefield management system, DELTA.
“You can go anywhere, just not into the Orion zone”
The claim that the Russians now avoid the sector, the unit says, comes from them themselves.
“Prisoners admit in interviews: 'You can go anywhere, just not into the Orion zone.' Eighty-eight percent of the enemy is destroyed before reaching their positions, and Russian equipment cannot approach closer than 25 kilometers,” the unit says.
That is what opens the corridor. Where a human supply run would be a death sentence, a robot can cross, and cross again.
The quiet blood of the front
The point, the unit says, is to take the soldier out of the deadliest job on the front: carrying ammunition and the wounded across open fire.
“We broke the stereotype that supplying the army takes truck convoys and hundreds of soldiers under targeted fire. Our robotic systems are the ‘quiet blood’ of the front,” Vladyslav Zolotarov, an officer in the unit’s staff control group, says.
When Russia thinks our positions are depleted, a tracked platform quietly comes in at night and brings in a ton of ammunition.
In September alone, the unit says, its wheeled and tracked robots ran 85 of the hardest combat missions and hauled more than 30,000 kilograms of cargo. Its evacuation record is the line it is proudest of: four missions pulling wounded soldiers out by robot, all four successful, not one man lost.
Ukraine has bet heavily on this kind of machine, aiming to field 50,000 ground robots to keep its troops out of the drone-ruled kill zone.