A Ukrainian commander said his troops used a single remote-controlled vehicle with a machine gun to hold frontline areas for nearly six straight weeks.
Details about the 45-day combat mission were provided exclusively to Business Insider by the NC-13 Strike Company, a unit within Ukraine’s Third Army Corps that specializes in uncrewed ground vehicles, or UGVs.
“Only the UGV system was present at the position,” said NC-13’s commander, Mykola “Makar” Zinkevych. “This was the core concept — robots do not bleed.”
A lone ground drone deployed so extensively signals both how quickly the technology is evolving in Ukraine and how Kyiv may soon look to deploy such vehicles at scale in combat. UGVs, although still seeing limited use compared to flying attack drones, are gaining popularity for their potential to replace human soldiers in holding frontline areas, which is one of the war’s most dangerous tasks.
The gun-wielding drone used by Zinkevych’s troops was the Droid TW 12.7, developed by the Ukrainian company DevDroid. It is a remote-controlled tracked buggy equipped with a .50-caliber M2 Browning.
Zinkevych said the Droid TW 12.7 was deployed to multiple positions during its 45-day combat duty, each time at the request of a command and observation post in the local fighting area.
“Requests were received regularly,” the commander said.
The drone’s primary objective was to “deliver fire damage and fire suppression against the enemy,” to discourage Russian troops from trying to advance in areas held by Ukraine, said Zinkevych.
The Droid TW 12.7 would briefly leave its post every two days to be serviced, Zinkevych said, by a Ukrainian drone crew sheltering about 4 kilometers, or 2.4 miles, away from the line of contact.
According to the commander, technical maintenance took about four hours each time, including weapons servicing, restocking the drone’s ammo, and recharging its battery.
“To speed up the inspection process, over time we purchased additional battery packs at our own expense, which reduced the maintenance time to 2 hours,” Zinkevych said. Ukrainian troops regularly spend their own salaries or savings on matériel.
DevDroid says that its Droid TW 12.7 has an operational range of up to 15 miles and is controlled via a radio signal, but that the drone can use artificial intelligence to set its own course automatically. The extent to which it can autonomously navigate the battlefield and engage in combat is still unclear.
The Third Army Corps posted a video in December of the drone firing at an off-camera target.
Two versions of the ground drone with grenade launchers — the Mk-19 and AGL-53 40mm — were also approved last month by Ukraine for official military use.
Zinkevych said that his company, created in September 2025 under the Third Assault Brigade, is focusing this year on the “maximum involvement” and wider-scale use of UGVs in combat for both defensive and assault missions.
“The demand for these systems is indeed high,” he said.
But Zinkevych said the process will be resource-intensive, and that his company runs a crowdfunding effort to continue developing its ground drones for combat.
“Today, we believe this is the most cost-effective investment,” he added.
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