An aerial drone conducts reconnaissance over a building in Kupyansk that has become a Russian stronghold. Following behind it, UGVs roll out from their position. Some are equipped with grenade launchers and thermobaric munitions \u2013 they will provide covering fire for the ground-based kamikaze drones, which are meanwhile approaching the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To destroy the Russian stronghold in February 2026, Lava did not deploy a single person<\/a> on the battlefield. Volodymyr Mirchuk \u2013 commander of the regiment that is part of the Khartiia Corps \u2013 says he does not believe in any war other than a robotised one. He served in the Territorial Defence Forces and the Marine Corps, where he likewise worked with unmanned systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now he and his brothers-in-arms are building a unit of the future, which in less than a year has grown from a newly formed battalion into a regiment. Lava’s task is to control the operational depth of 120\u2013200 km and to support brigades on the Kharkiv axis. How is the regiment managing this? On middle strikes, the potential of UGVs and its own R&D centre, in an interview by Defender Media with the commander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 You\u2019re already making active use of unmanned ground vehicles. How much faith do you have in this segment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 The potential in the UGV <\/a>sector is enormous, but things have come to a standstill in this area at the moment. If you go to an exhibition, you\u2019ll see the same things you saw there a year and a half or two years ago. Iterations in this field aren\u2019t happening very quickly; there\u2019s nothing groundbreaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, there isn\u2019t a reliable connection for control and lag-free video. Although Starlink does work with minimal latency, it\u2019s only in open fields. But what happens if we drive into a forest or between plantations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latency affects the speed, which is still low \u2013 10 km\/h on average \u2013 and the screen might show a slideshow rather than a video. This makes us vulnerable: we can\u2019t manoeuvre properly, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the sector will move beyond this plateau towards sustainable development, but for now, everyone is searching for something, and we in particular. We\u2019re testing various concepts: I simply don\u2019t believe in any other kind of war except a robotic one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 What equipment do you use for this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cOur priority is to develop the UGV sector\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n