Ukraine robot attack exposes vulnerabilities in Putin’s war machine

A surprise attack by Ukrainian robots in the eastern Donbas region appears to have reversed more than a year of Russian territorial gains and dealt a strategic blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions, security experts said.

Details of the Ukrainian counterattack, dubbed “Operation Vivaldi,” have begun to emerge in recent weeks, providing valuable insight into the rapidly changing nature of front-line combat operations amid a full-scale Russian invasion.

As part of an ongoing operation that began in May, security experts said Ukraine’s III Corps successfully deployed large bomber drones and remote-controlled robots behind enemy lines around Ryman in northern Donetsk region, apparently catching Russian forces by surprise.

For the past 12 months, Russian forces have been trying to siege cities in Ukraine’s so-called fortress zone, which makes up what remains of Ukrainian-controlled territory in the region.

However, Ukrainian Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky said on September 28 that an additional 51 square kilometers were liberated in the third phase of Operation Vivaldi, bringing the total area of ​​recaptured territory to 176 square kilometers. He added that the latest stage of the fighting had caused more than 2,000 casualties on the Russian side and more than 250 Russian soldiers had been taken prisoner.

Patrick Boulder, a defense expert and strategic advisor at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS), said the attack was a “major nosebleed” against Putin’s minimal war goal of seizing Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Bolder said he demonstrated the ability to keep operational details secret, conducting a disinformation campaign against Russia and leading a months-long air campaign to disrupt logistics to the front lines, while ensuring Ukrainian forces secured air superiority over the Ryman area and denying Russia the use of drones.

The Ukrainian military was then able to deploy its own drones and drop unmanned ground vehicles behind enemy lines to attack Russian forces from behind without putting its own personnel at risk, Boulder said.

“They put this together beautifully,” Bolder said.

For the Kremlin, “taking Donbass is very far away at the moment, because the Ukrainians are now in a more defensible position, so it will be difficult for the Russians to try this again,” he added.

A spokesperson for the Russian embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC on Friday.

Security experts have made it clear that Ukraine’s robot offensive should not be seen as a decisive breakthrough.

But it “sends a strong message to Moscow and its partners in Kiev that a highly innovative Ukrainian military can still defeat Russia on the battlefield,” said David Kirichenko, an associate researcher at the Henry Jackson Institute, a U.K.-based national security think tank.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with soldiers conducting the counterattack and praised the success of Ukraine’s III Corps, calling the operation “important in many ways” for the defense of Ukraine as a whole and the Donbass region in particular.

President Zelenskyy said in a social media post on September 30 that “one of the areas that is particularly promising right now is the replacement of soldiers with ground-based robotic systems wherever possible.”

“In the days of Vivaldi, we were able to achieve a lot thanks to this capability. We will expand this capability so that increasingly, drones, rather than warriors, perform the most dangerous missions on the front lines,” he added.

Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s capital and major cities in recent days, targeting data centres, communications and energy infrastructure as it seeks to disrupt the flow of information and force power outages ahead of winter.

Ukrainian officials expressed deep concern over the attack and said there was an urgent need for the country to respond quickly to missile and drone threats.

Ukraine is trying to defray the costs of Russia’s more than four-and-a-half year war against Ukraine, which has targeted the country’s oil refineries and logistics hubs.

According to Serhiy Kuzan, chairman of the Kiev-based think tank Ukraine Center for Security Cooperation, robotic systems have become one of the key elements of Ukraine’s counterattack operations.

“Their use has not only reduced the risk to personnel, but also changed the very logic of combat. Previously, dozens or hundreds of soldiers were required, but remotely operated platforms are increasingly being introduced,” Kuzan told CNBC via email.

“The experience of Operation Vivaldi changed the paradigm of modern warfare by systematically replacing human personnel with robots, proving that missions can be accomplished with minimal human losses.”

Kuzan ultimately said that Ukraine’s counterattack in the Ryman region was aimed at seizing the initiative on the battlefield and “ultimately will force the Russian military to abandon the goals set by the political leadership.”

Russian political leaders had previously set a goal of seizing the Donetsk region by the end of the year, but the Russian military is now said to be seeking an extension until March next year, according to reports from Ukrainian officials.

“This is because, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian forces suffered the heaviest losses in the main directions of advance: Kostyantiniivka, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, accounting for 70-80 percent of all casualties,” Kuzan said.