Ground Robots Become the New Stars of the Battlefield: Record Sales in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces are rushing to a digital weapons platform to purchase record numbers of ground robots, highlighting the growing popularity of these machines.
Ukraine-backed innovation platform Brave1 announced on Monday that the military had ordered more than 3,000 ground robots through its digital platform since its launch last year, including more than 640 units in July alone.
In a statement, the Brave1 digital platform said the latest figure represented a 680% increase compared with the monthly average recorded in 2025.
Speaking to the US website Business Insider, Yulia Myrna, Brave1’s product director, said that ground robots and interceptor drones “are among the fastest-growing categories we expect to see in 2026.”
Ukraine launched the Brave1 Market platform in April 2025, giving soldiers access to an Amazon-like website where they could purchase military technologies, including drones, robots and electronic warfare systems, from the defense industry, thereby simplifying the procurement process.
In October 2025, it became possible to purchase unmanned ground vehicles using “electronic points” accumulated by Ukrainian soldiers in exchange for documented kills of Russian soldiers or destruction of military equipment, as well as for completing other battlefield missions.
Different types of drones, including quadcopters, interceptor drones and heavy bombers, are among the most popular products on the Brave1 marketplace in terms of volume.
Although ground robots can cost tens of thousands of dollars, making them generally much more expensive than other types of drones, they perform very different roles and have longer operational cycles.
Myrna said Ukraine is “deliberately accelerating” the integration of ground robots into combat operations, particularly in logistics and casualty evacuation.
She added: “Military units are now receiving electronic points for successfully completing these tasks using robotic systems, which incentivizes replacing personnel in high-risk missions whenever possible.”
She explained that this “helps create an effective development cycle, because increased use of robots on battlefields generates more operational feedback for manufacturers, leading to faster product improvements and ultimately helping us keep personnel away from tasks that machines can perform.”
At the beginning of the war, only a handful of Ukrainian companies were producing ground robots.
Today, around 280 companies manufacture hundreds of different products, according to Andrii Hrytseniouk, CEO of Brave1, who spoke to Business Insider.
The growing demand for unmanned ground vehicles reflects Ukraine’s determined effort to replace soldiers with robots and drones in dangerous missions, particularly frontline resupply operations.
Ukrainian officials have expressed their desire for robots to take over all logistical support operations on the battlefield, missions that have become extremely dangerous as the “kill zone” continues to expand — the area surrounding the front lines that is saturated with drones.
Ukrainian commanders told Business Insider that robots enable their units to carry out vital missions while keeping their personnel safe.
