Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.
Ukraine is siccing a fleet of robot dogs on Russian troops, including some four-legged terminators it hopes to use to conduct “kamikaze” attacks on enemy soldiers and vehicles along the frontlines, officials said.
More than 30 of the $9,000-a-pop robo hounds made by the company Brit Alliance have taken to the battlefield so far, with the metal dogs serving as walking drones capable of performing reconnaissance missions and swiftly delivering supplies to troops.
A commander of Ukraine’s Kurt & Company unit told the Telegraph that his team is working to make the dogs also “act as a kamikaze drone against vehicles or enemy soldiers.
“We will start using them en masse after the complete modernization of the robo dogs to our needs,” the commander said. “The process is already under way.”
Brit Alliance touted the robot dogs’ first usage in war in Ukraine as a success.
While the company hopes to build on that success based on the army’s feedback, it’s unclear if the company would ship off battle-capable dogs.
Kyle Thorburn, the managing director, previously told the Telegraph that the robots were not designed as weapons but instead tools to “save lives” on the battlefield.
The robots, dubbed “BAD2,” are equipped with remote-sensing technology and a thermal-infrared camera, allowing the hounds to accurately traverse trenches and wooded areas that aerial drones cannot.
BAD2 move at 9 mph for up to five hours, with the robot capable of carrying more than 15 pounds of supplies and ammunition, officials say.
The dog is also able to trigger Russian booby traps along the frontlines, alerting soldiers to the danger ahead, unlike aerial drones that would fly over the traps.
The deployment of the BAD2 comes as drone warfare increases between Kyiv and Moscow, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky celebrating his nation’s latest drone attack Saturday with a homegrown Palianytsia device.
The new drone weapon was successfully deployed from Ukraine and struck a Russian military facility in one of the occupied cities, according to the Ministry of Strategic Industries.
It came after Ukraine fired more than 73 drone strikes at Russia late last week, including 11 aimed at Moscow in one of the largest drone assaults targeting the capital since the war began.
