Robots will not replace armored vehicles on the battlefield, says a company that builds both. Ground robots are a new tool that lets Ukraine distribute risk more smartly, but they cannot do everything a crewed armored vehicle can, above all pulling wounded soldiers out under fire, says Ukr Armo Tech's chief executive Hennadii Khirhii, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

Ukraine has a serious shortage of armored vehicles, from evacuation carriers to tracked fighting vehicles, with the focus shifting to hulls that offer heavy mine protection and built-in electronic warfare. For medical-evacuation armor alone, Khirhii says, the deficit is often put at 80 percent.

Robots can ease some of that, hauling ammunition and supplies to the front without risking a crew, but they are a complement, not a substitute, a view frontline commanders also confirm.

Robots share the load, not replace it

Where a robot can do the job, Khirhii says, there is no sense sending in heavy armor and the people inside it to face danger. For carrying ammunition or food, unmanned ground vehicles are useful. But evacuating the wounded is different: that usually needs, at least for the second leg, a protected medical vehicle in which care can begin on the move, with room for transfusions and resuscitation that a robot's capsule cannot provide.

"A UGV doesn't cancel the armored vehicle, just as the drone didn't cancel artillery," he says.

The limits show at evacuation

Ukraine has leaned hard into robotic logistics and casualty evacuation, running more than 100,000 such missions this year to keep medics and crews off exposed roads, but the robots themselves now draw Russian drone and artillery fire, and they cannot replace medical personnel.

One commander has called ground robots too slow for evacuation and easy targets, arguing brigades still need staffed evacuation teams and light-armored vehicles.

Commanders want both

The lesson from the front is not robots instead of armor, but robots alongside it. What matters, Khirhii says, is a smart combination of machines for each mission, with people's safety and the task's practicality first. The front today needs both armored vehicles and ground robots, he continues, and it needs a great amount of both.

Ukrainian Armor has rolled out two new armored vehicles built to carry troops through a fight: a fast, lightly protected carrier and a heavier mine-resistant MRAP. The company showed the Saihak-1 and the Varta 3 at the MSPO 2026 defense expo in Poland, Oboronka reports.

The two vehicles cover opposite ends of the same need — moving soldiers safely — with a light scout at one end and a heavily armored MRAP at the other. Both are built to NATO's STANAG 4569 protection standards. They were displayed at MSPO, a major European defense fair in Kielce.

The Saihak-1 trades armor for speed

The first of them is the Saihak-1, the lighter of the two, its hull rated to the Ukrainian PZSA 3 ballistic standard that is enough to stop standard 5.45×39 and 7.62×39 rounds. It has STANAG Level 1 mine protection against anti-personnel mines and fragments.

A 240-horsepower diesel and four-wheel drive push it to 140 km/h, with an 80-liter tank giving a range of about 600 kilometers. It seats a crew of two and three more troops, and carries front and rear cameras, automatic fire suppression, run-flat tires, and climate control. The company says it doubles as a disaster- and accident-response vehicle.

The Varta 3 shrugs off mines

The another one is the Varta 3. Its hull meets the higher PZSA 6 standard, stopping armor-piercing 7.62×54 rounds, and its STANAG Level 3a/3b mine protection is rated to survive a blast of up to eight kilograms of explosive. A 326-horsepower diesel and automatic transmission move a vehicle weighing up to 14,800 kilograms at up to 100 km/h, carrying two crew and eight troops on mine-resistant seats.

It adds communications and navigation gear, video surveillance, air filtration, run-flat tires, and automatic fire suppression, and can mount either a rotating machine-gun platform or a remotely operated weapon station.