One granny has been safely plucked from the frontlines of the Russo-Ukrainian war by the unlikeliest of heroes: a remote-guided robot.
A bizarre video clip shared by the BBC shows what appears to be an unmanned ground vehicle, or UGV, approaching an elderly woman struggling to evacuate her village, Lyman, which had been decimated in the war.
According to the BBC, the robot’s operators in Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps attached amessage to the UGV via a shred of blanket reading “grandma, sit down,” to convince the woman the approaching robot was a friend, not a foe.
It isn’t exactly clear what UGV was involved in the operation, though according to Ukrainian state media it was guided by a separate surveillance drone.
Though she had reportedly lived in Lyman for 53 years, its destruction by advancing Russian troops had made life impossible for the woman, identified as a 77-year old named Antonina Horuzha.
“I thought I wouldn’t make it and didn’t have the strength,” the , told the BBC, which translated her comments. “I thought I’d lie among the trees and that would be it.”
UGVs are a staple piece of equipment on the Ukrainian front lines, used to ferry supplies like food and ammo to troops, as well as evacuating wounded personnel away from harm.
In March, it was announced that a San Francisco-based company had sent two humanoid robots to the frontlines for reconnaissance tasks — though the vast majority of bots on both sides of the conflict are remote-controlled drones, like the kind that evacuated Horuzha away from the ravages of war.
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