Ukraine develops combat robots to hunt Russian troops in underground gas pipelines

The project, disclosed by Ukraine's 2nd National Guard Corps, Khartiia, involves modifying unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to perform reconnaissance and combat missions in spaces too narrow for conventional military machinery. The work is being carried out by specialists from the corps’ Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment, following Operation Veles, an underground assault that saw Ukrainian soldiers advance more than 15 kilometers through pipeline infrastructure near Kupiansk.

During Operation Veles, Ukrainian soldiers moved through a gas pipeline measuring approximately 1.2 meters in diameter, according to a report by Ikrainska Pravda. The confined passage made movement and close-range firefights particularly difficult, with Ukrainian troops having little-to-no room to maneuver. Khartiia says the operation killed more than 100 enemy soldiers and resulted in over 30 captured, although those battlefield figures have not been independently verified. Last month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces had eliminated more than 100 Russian troops and captured over 30 during the operation. Russia had previously used the pipeline network beneath the Oskil River to move soldiers toward Ukrainian-held territory, and the Ukrainian battlefield monitoring group Deepstate reported an earlier Russian infiltration attempt in September 2025.

The machines are being adapted from existing ground robots, rather than developed as conventional surface vehicles. They must be compact enough to navigate narrow pipelines while retaining the ability to carry out military assignments. Most commercially available underground machinery is designed for construction, drilling, and tunneling, not combat. As of now, Khartiia is already developing several robotic systems to address those limitations, with the broader objective of sending machines into dangerous underground environments where soldiers would otherwise have to conduct reconnaissance, confront enemy positions, or clear positions.

“There is a very long list of tasks that need to be accomplished to fight underground and counter the enemy underground. This is a new class of technologies and challenges that we will have to confront,” said the commander of Lava's ground robotic system battalion, identified by the callsign ‘Matematyk’. “War is already underground, and it will expand. The question is how we adapt to this war.”

The project follows unusual battlefield developments near Kupiansk, where Ukrainian forces used the same underground infrastructure that Russian troops have previously exploited to infiltrate behind Ukrainian defensive positions. Underground operations restrict visibility, complicate communications, and leave little room for maneuvering equipment. Ukraine has increased its reliance on unmanned military systems as battlefield terrain proves complicated to navigate.