A squad of Ukrainian “kamikaze ground robots” airdropped behind enemy lines have taken out 3,000 Russian soldiers and reclaimed 48 square miles of occupied territory in Donetsk, officials announced.
The secretive mission, dubbed “Operation Vivaldi,” began in May and wrapped up last week, when the Third Army Corps of the Ukraine’s Armed Forces made details of the feat public.
“An historic moment,” it boasted on Telegram Thursday. “The Third Army Corps has begun a new stage of the war with the landing of ground robots.”
Ukraine’s army airdropped ground robots behind the frontline to take out 3,000 Russian soldiers. ab3.army
The operation recaptured five villages and three settlements in the contested region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, one of the two provinces that make up the industrial mineral-rich Donbas that tyrant Vladimir Putin wants to seize.
Russia currently occupies about 80% of Donetsk.
“We’re the first in the world to use this tactic — dropping ground robots,” Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the Third Army Corps, said on YouTube.
Bomber drones were used to drop the small but mighty unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs, up to 9 miles behind the Russian frontline.
The operation recaptured five villages and three settlements in the contested region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. ab3.army
Cameras mounted atop the four-wheeled robots captured the surprise operation.
The unit completed more than 15,700 missions, targeting Russian command posts, shelters, logistics hubs and river crossings.
“The enemy expects the threat from the sky, not the ground,” Biletskyi said. “Where the enemy least expected it, dead and wounded Russian soldiers appeared.”