The incident suggests that war robots are rapidly maturing, moving beyond support and logistics into offensive roles.

Futurism reports that Ukrainian defense robotics firm DevDroid's armed unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) forced the surrender of three Russian soldiers.

"The footage shows three Russian soldiers approaching one by one, removing their equipment, and lying down next to the UGV," the tech outlet wrote in a note, adding the UGV has a ballistic computer and artificial intelligence for autonomous detection, capture, and tracking of targets.

What is clear is that wheeled combat robots on the modern battlefield in Ukraine, used for offensive operations, could soon transition into humanoid robotic platforms.

California-based robotics startup Foundation is developing the Phantom humanoid robot for both commercial and military use.

The firm has stated ambitions to build tens of thousands of these humanoids, capable of carrying payloads and various weapon platforms, for use in dangerous missions, such as breaching buildings, and has secured defense contracts and interest from U.S. military programs.

Unlike other robotics companies such as Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics, Unitree, and Figure AI, all of which have stated that their humanoids will not be used in military or defense applications, Foundation has stated otherwise.

Foundation's Phantom MK1 has been trained on the 9mm pistol.

CEO Sankaet Pathak confirmed Phantom MK1 has had weapons training in a recent conversation with tech blog Humanoids Daily.

According to Forbes, Foundation deployed 40 robots in 2025, with manufacturing expanding this year to 10,000, then to 50,000 by late 2027.

Given that Foundation is one of the very few, if not only, robotics firms in the US with a DoD contract specifically for an offensive humanoid combat robot, it wouldn't be a surprise if these bots were found on the Ukrainian battlefield for testing later this year.