Ukrainian troops have turned a worn-out armored carrier into a crewless bomb on wheels. Engineers fitted an old BTR, a Soviet-type armored personnel carrier, with a remote-control system, packed it with explosives, and drove it into Russian positions, where it detonated, says Andrii Kupriianov, callsign Darwin, a Hero of Ukraine and battalion commander in the 125th Brigade, in an interview with Glavcom.

The improvised bomb-carrier is one corner of a fast-growing shift to ground robots, which Ukraine is pushing to the front for the jobs that get soldiers killed. Those machines now haul ammunition and food, carry out the wounded and even fight, in missions that have multiplied over the past year, sparing troops the deadliest trips across open ground.

An old carrier sent in without a crew

Kupriianov said his forces installed a remote-control system on the BTR so it could be driven with anyone inside.

“They packed it with explosives and sent it straight at Russian positions, where it blew up and caused great damage,” he shared with the journalists.

It is the kind of improvisation Ukrainian units have used elsewhere, converting Western armor the same way, including an M113 carrier turned into an unmanned machine for mine-clearing and logistics.

The jobs robots now do so soldiers don’t have to

Across the Defense Forces, ground robotic complexes are increasingly taking on tasks that once fell to people, Kupriyanov said, logistics above all: the robots carry ammunition and food to the line, so troops leave cover and cross open ground less often.

“Previously a soldier had to walk far for ammunition and carry it back. It took a lot of time, sometimes days. It was dangerous, because the soldier could be spotted from the sky and hit. No guaranteed result: sometimes you simply couldn’t get there. The robot simplifies this work,” Kupriianov explained.

The machines also pull out the wounded and the dead, he added: a casualty can be laid on the complex and carried to safety, where before it took several soldiers to evacuate one wounded man, baring their positions and risking more lives.

A year ago, Ukraine’s 125th heavy mechanized brigade was written off as beyond saving, manned at 17% with not a single tank, gun, or drone crew to its name. A year on, the brigade says it now ranks first among the army’s heavy brigades and that 1,500 soldiers who had gone absent without leave have returned to serve.

The 125th, part of Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, drew the comparison as it summed up its first year under new command. It comes as Ukraine struggles with a force-wide shortage of soldiers and leans on the Third Army Corps, the formation the 125th now fights under, for its counterattacks around Lyman.

The figures behind a brigade rebuilt from 17% strength

In the unit’s telling, the collapse was never the whole story.

“We were told the brigade couldn’t be saved. But they didn’t account for the main thing, people,” the brigade recalls.

By its own count, manning has risen 430% over the year, and its main units now stand at 95-100%. The crews that grew fastest were the ones flying drones: the number of aerial-reconnaissance teams is up 1200%, FPV crews 950%, heavy-bomber crews 1400%, and fixed-wing drone crews 600%.

The brigade also built units of uncrewed ground vehicles from scratch and stood up its own training, air defense, electronic warfare, reconnaissance, and medical structures.

Now, it is among the most effective brigades for destroying Russians, mining, artillery, air defense, ground robots, and reconnaissance, and for three months running it has placed first among the army’s heavy mechanized brigades on those combined measures.

From two pickups and a minibus to Bradleys and Leopards

The starting point was close to empty. At the beginning of the reform, the brigade had almost no combat equipment, its commander, Volodymyr Fokin, told ArmyInform in June.

“For the whole brigade we had two pickups and one minibus,” he said.

In the first six months, he added, the brigade replaced about 90% of its commanders in key posts and stood up a tank battalion, a drone battalion and a ground-robotics company.

Today it fields American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, German Leopard tanks and artillery of various calibers.

A captain with the callsign “Skamer” told ArmyFM in July that the new equipment came with new ways of running the brigade, with more authority given to commanders who had real combat experience.