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Russia’s High Precision Systems Holding Company revealed two new UGV’ (unmanned ground vehicles) that come in two distinct forms called “Depesha” and “Buggy” and are designed for different battlefield roles, from kamikaze operations to delivering fuel and provisions to troops, to evacuating wounded soldiers.
The UGVs’ carrying capacities are 150 kg and 250 kg respectively, and they can be equipped with explosives and sent towards enemy positions to eliminate personnel and fortifications.
Russian news agency TASS quoted a source saying: “This ‘cart’ has already been tested in the special operation area during an assault on an enemy stronghold when it was turned into a kamikaze vehicle… It can be controlled remotely and generally can have any designation on the battlefield: delivering ammunition and evacuating wounded personnel. The work on the platform continues.”
According to Interesting Engineering, the “cart” refers to the “Depesha” (also called “Impulse-M”), which serves as a base chassis for a range of other potential combat systems. It also reportedly uses AI, which enables it to operate autonomously when needed.
The vehicle’s main control system uses a jam-proof multi-variant communication system, and in case of communication loss, the navigation system automatically enables the robot to return to base using points stored in its computer.
Interesting Engineering also reports that this news about new Russian UGVs comes after other uses of similar vehicles by Ukraine, like the news that the country developed and field-tested grenade-launcher-armed mini-tank drones or an explosive-laden UGV to strike Russian trenches.
Senior Ukrainian official claims that a kamikaze UGV helped their fighters blast a bridge in the eastern Donetsk region earlier this month, which was being used by Russian forces for logistics.
Russia has also reportedly experimented with other robotic UGVs in the war against Ukraine, after just recently revealing its “Azbat” robots that use electronic warfare to combat Ukrainian drones and can move along a pre-assigned route without direct control of their operator.
