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/
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.