There is increasing demand among frontline troops for the robots, which move on wheels or tracks and are controlled by radio signals like aerial drones. They can range in size from smaller than a microwave to large enough to carry multiple people. The number of tasks the robots completed across the front line nearly doubled from August to September, according to Ukraine’s top commander. Ukrainian soldiers hope the robots can take over more basic frontline tasks, sparing troops from some of the more dangerous work of the ground war.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/20/ukraine-russia-battlefield-land-drones/
When the West first sent tanks, there were a lot of reports that front-line Russians fled when they saw them coming. Out of shock and fear of “NATO.” Ukraine mostly used the tanks as response troops, which may have been the right call, but something that causes fear is invaluable, and Ukraine didn’t seize the opportunity with Western tanks for offensives. In my humble opinion, while Russians are terrified of Robo Kill Machines, push them before they become normalized to them. Fear of something you don’t know is very powerful.
Ukraine didn’t seize the opportunity with Western tanks for offensives.
This is completely wrong, the tanks were used in the big spring offensive 2023 that unfortunately failed, and was way to costly compared to what was gained. Which is why we never heard much about it after the fact. But the superiority of the German Leopard and the American Abrams tanks over Russian tanks, was exactly one of the factors that was supposed to help Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensive
It was absolutely not Ukraine that failed to seize the opportunity, but the west that failed to deliver as promised. So mechanized brigades that were trained for and supposed to have modern western tanks were only equipped with obsolete T64 tanks!
I guess, but the US tried to screw over Ukraine by giving them tanks without giving them enough artillery to properly support heavy armored maneuver. It is equivalent to handing someone a knight’s helmet and shield but no sword or suit armor… sure it helps but it isn’t what they probably asked for in terms of being armed for self defense and I mean… ok sure the shield is nice but… what? Why? Did you want to technically help them while still letting them fail or at least struggle to win?
The U.S and the E.U. could have easily pushed Russia out of Ukraine in the first 6 months of the war. Hell they could have kicked them out of Crimea a long time ago.
Instead they gave Ukraine just enough weapons to turn the war into a stalemate but not absolutely crush the Russian army. Was it was a fear of nuclear retaliation or a deliberate ploy to bleed the Russian military stockpile dry?
In the end the result is the same: Ukrainians suffer for European decisions again.
Go read the way some people on /r/credibledefense on reddit (NOT lemmy/fediverse) talk about helping Ukraine, some of these assholes openly admit they support slow walking aid to Ukraine to hurt Russia maximally. They treat this like a board game with abstracted plastic pieces moving around, it is disgusting. They say it outloud too, speaking to Ukrainian lives as if they were good trades for geopolitical gains.
I don’t see intentional malice in it, it is just defense focused people in the US tend to have a baby level understanding of the world and have had their brain broken by conservatism to the point they can’t think critically about how their words and actions may be received.
Which is infuriating because we’re past that point. We know Russia is a paper tiger and any concerted effort from a real superpower would fold the Russian military in weeks tops, especially after years of heavy attrition. There’s no reason for NATO to withhold any type of aid, especially with Russia currently testing borders the way they are. The only thing to be gained is more prolonged destruction and death.
Agreed, I guess the hopeful thing I see here is that I think things have degraded so far for Russia that Trump and Putin are starting to get desperate, you can see it in the frantic way they try to do shit to distract from Zelensky whenever Zelensky seizes the political initiative.
You can also see it in the way they keep trying to advance the process of negotiations while needing to make it look backhanded to save face.
Some good news among all the bad. I hope they can push back the Russians or that Russia runs out of steam next year (as was predicted multiple times). The war has been going on too long.
I think this winter will be very tough for many Russians.
But whether they run out of steam during the winter, depends 100% on the Russian population and how much they are willing to sacrifice.(as was predicted multiple times)
The predictions of Russian economic collapse was always about when Russia had spent their war chest Putin had built up to withstand western sanctions. And as predicted this war chest is now used up, and the Russian government is running on deficits.
As I recall last winter we had predictions that this years harvest would fail, and that has happened for all the exact reasons it was predicted. For instance Russia has needed to import huge amounts of potatoes, drying up supplies in Belarus, which is Europe’s biggest exporter of potatoes. This is also evident in that food in Russia is hit by inflation way above average.
The Russian economy is also beginning to collapse now, just as many predicted.
The Russian economy saw growth in the first years powered by the use of the war chest and oil money. And Russia had huge problems with getting enough workers. But now we are beginning to see unemployment, despite the war effort.So the predictions have been pretty good as I see it, even the timescale has been surprisingly accurate IMO.
There have been economists who claimed the Russian economy is still doing fine as late as a month ago, but those economists are wrong from everything I hear out of Russia. Russia is absolutely not fine. And the Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries has really increased the pressure on the Russian economy.