come fetch fetch meet Robo dog today she's in a playful mood she doesn't bark and she doesn't bite but if you're with a Russian military she can do a whole lot worse than nip your ankle better to have her on your side this dog is much more obedient than my Greyhound in this two-part male Frontline film shot in the winter of 202 cameraman Jamie wisman and I travel to the H of oblas Frontline areas we meet the futuristic ground drones deployed by Ukraine's most Innovative combat unit which has been given the nickname the billionaires Brigade we spend an evening in a vampire's Crypt near the Russian border and watch the vampires bite we see how a disabled tank is recovered under cover of Darkness while the everpresent Drone threat interrupts an oldfashioned artillery strike okay there's a drone very close and we're going to have to go to the shelter our Frontline is spending a week with robo dogs owners the so-called billionaires Brigade the unit claims to be the template for a future Cutting Edge Ukrainian Army certainly it's among the most Innovative and glamorous of the Frontline formations here as such the Brigade is able to recruit Ukraine's best officer Cadets counts a number of celebrities among its volunteer soldiers and is no stranger to visiting Global dignitaries it might have started as a territorial defense unit but Dad's Army it is not so who are these poster boys the 13th harda Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine as it's officially titled was founded and funded in 2022 by seod kosimo one of the country's wealthiest businessmen most of its battles have taken place inside its native hak oblast it led the charge to the Russian border during the Ukraine successful harv counter offensive in the Autumn of 22 last May the unit stopped in its tracks the Russians renewed push towards hak City while to the south of us in dbas the Russians are advancing relentlessly up here on the battlefield between H City and the Russian border the Invaders are not only being held by ha but in some places pushed back hatia believes in a more cerebral approach to combat Mission planning and execution follow NATO rather than Soviet protocols each attack is prepared and reviewed in detail using 3D printer made models and specialist software a hartia S3 planning officer spoke to Front Line about the brigade's adoption of the seven-step military decision-making process which is followed in the West rehearsal element this is how that theory looks in practice the footage you're about to see now provided to front line by haa Chronicles a combat operation in the second half half of 2024 from the planning process to the full-blown assault on Russian positions in a forest Northeast of H City some of the footage has been censored for security reasons here we see unit commanders being walked and talked through a floor model of the operational area and their individual roles a diversionary faint is explained the attacks armored thrust is practiced for a final time the assault troops Gather in darkness and are assigned to their vehicles [Music] [Music] Sunrise the attack is about to be launched as hara's armor advances on the enemy Tree Line watched by friendly drones artillery is beginning to fall This Is The Moment of Truth for the assault Infantry basic instructions from The Troop [Music] Commander the assault troops have been given dozens of GoPro cameras to record and later analyze the unfolding attack what you're watching is not an exercise this is a close quarter Small Arms battle on the edge of the forest tension back in the control room the hatier assault troops were on top of a Russian Dugout now the enem is hitting back grads begin to fall into the forest along the line of Advance the Small Arms battle intensifies as more Russian positions are reached grenades are being used St Ukrainian attack drones now enter The Fray [Music] Ukrainian artillery is also engaging the Russian positions the pressure begins to tell on the Defenders the Ukrainian drones record Russian soldiers fleeing their positions clearing of enemy positions With Grenades and Small Arms fire is underway the fighting is intense here a Ukrainian throws a grenade another grenade into another rushan Tren here is an enemy Dugout with casualties front line understands that as a result of this assault the Russians suffered more than 60 casualties lost a Howitzer and an anti-tank firing position and were driven back to their next line of defense hatia can get their hands as dirty as any other infantry Brigade but what we really wanted to see were the combat robots for which the unit is known the ukrainians call them ground drones it took little time to arrange the demonstration that's because the remote control machines are already being used on the battlefield they're not toys or prototypes in fact harda claims to have carried out the world's first ever remote control machine only attack on a Russian position in harv in December to view the evidence we drove North to hark from dbas on one of the few truly wintry days in January the Drone unit operates out of a Secret Workshop in Haku City it's led by 20s somethings rather than the generation X's you tend to find in charge of other units on the front line in fact the average age of the whole of the ctia Brigade is only 31 these are young scientists or Gamers who've brought their peacetime skills to develop this high-tech Warfare Jess age 20 is the unit's coder [Music] how does it feel to work how do you feel about working for such a special unit um okay I could ask you finally what did you do before the full scale [Music] Invasion thank you very much Jess pan 26 is the unit's Deputy Commander a molecular biologist by training he was about to begin a p HD in Germany when The fullscale Invasion began his particular interest was biological evolution now he's involved in the development of war machines what we're looking at um actually are ground drones these are robots that can be remotely controlled on the battlefield of course they are can be remotely controlled and we usually control them remotely and trying to do it as far from Battlefield as it's possible for safety of our operations operators this particular drone is used for Logistics well we can see it's carrying a lot of firewood here yeah it is because we used it for test testing it its capabilities but it could be used for ammunition of course ammunition uh any Supply I guess it's actually replacing human beings for doing um all more vulnerable Vehicles which need to be manned by human beings yes you're right it replacing humans uh making their job uh easier safer and uh also replacing other vehicles that are more vulnerable and uh more costly and I can see these uh they have either tracks or they have heavy tires these are capable of going across pretty rough terrain yeah yes but uh everything has its limit could you tell me I I know this unit is still pretty secret and confidential but I mean how long have you been operating on the battlefield uh our unit operating on a battlefield for around half a year and that's on the Hy front yeah yes yeah yeah and are you uh I know this is early days yet but are you en encouraged by the results of your operations with these ground RADS have you enjoy our result because uh we don't have a lot of people uh uh each person highly specialized we do a lot of work with small amount of people and we like it and I understand that um these vehicles these drones are developed entirely in Ukraine yes they manufacture it in Ukraine but uh the majority of them are upgraded and Modified by us before we use them the final question I was going to ask you is um so are we actually looking at the future of warfare here we are not looking at the future we are looking already at Modern Warfare this is the reality of warfare in 2025 of course this it is our reality all kinds of military robots are to be found here from machines that can lay anti-tank mines or Mount machine guns to heavy load carriers all are control remotely obviating the need for a human to be in the line of fire Ukraine is increasingly short of soldiers such robots could provide the answer to the shortfall the star of the show because it or rather she is so very strange is Robo dog this is the 22-year-old unit Commander called sign happy in Repose Robo dog looks like an oven ready chicken except a green light has now started blinking in its head this is 13 brigade's famous robot dog she waking up from its sleep robot dog is amazing and also more than a little [Music] creepy unlike the other robots deployed by the Brigade she was not developed in Ukraine was amazing she's an adaptation of the go-to model made by the Chinese company unitary robotics off the shelf the go-to cost a little over £2,000 it ha has been triing Robo dog for close quter Battlefield reconnaissance using its stealth capabilities and Powerful head-mounted camera that can relay real-time video feed to an operator several kilometers away beg up unfortunately it doesn't speak English it doesn't speak English it's been reported that both the US Marines and Chinese Army have tested an armed version of Robo dog the Marines with an anti-tank missile the Chinese with an assault rifle a Cavalcade of battle robots sets off to the countryside this is all very weird this creature also belongs to the unit it's a real cat by the way we arrive in a field a few miles outside harv City Robo dog is let off her leash and shows a surprising turn of pace you can see how well she's camouflaged merging into the mud in case you're wondering I say she because dog is a feminine noun in both Ukrainian and Russian this is an anti-tank mine laying drone now in combat conditions the operator uh would be several kilometers away and would be controlling controlling it via a mavic drone overhead um and I we'll just show you how it works one mine at a time time all done remotely and without any particular risk to the operator we now have an anti-tank barrier on this part of the field this particular ground drone is designed to mount a 7.62 machine gun somewhere here it has been used in combat uh and it has been used to attack Russian positions um again it's uh can be it will be used remotely uh the operator can be several kilometers away and it'll be he'll be directing it uh she or she will be directing it via a mavic type reconnaissance drone overhead let's see it move you see it's got uh plate armor and the turret also revolves this kind of technology is not the future of ground combat this is actually happening now on the battlefield here we see footage of one of the Ukrainian machine gun drones successfully attacking a Russian position inside KK I'm invited to take control of one of the small fast robots that could perform several tasks from carrying supplies to kamakazi attacks it's great fun but one's attention keeps returning to the Sinister crowd-pleasing Robo dog jump very good one final trick can roll over roll over this particular Robo dog doesn't bark but has been programmed to say something very rude to any Russian it encounters okay that might have to be bleed we've saw it in the workshop it did a few tricks now it's out in the field and you can see it's been running around this field uh very easily uh it's got a camera in its nose which uh it uses for reconnaissance it seems very agile particularly on this the flat surface here it can do a variety of amusing tricks but uh it's its intent its purpose is deadly serious sit very good dog very good this footage is giving a slightly misleading impression as it is the robo dog's controller a soldier standing just off camera who is the one following my instructions rather than the Drone itself No Doubt with the evolution of AI that day will come now let's look at what Robo Dog Saw of this sequence or rather the images conveyed to her pilot good dog go fetch fetch this dog is much more obedient than my Greyhound like a spaniel after a walk on a wet Winter's day she needs a bath nor is she completely surefooted this is some uh considerable Leap Forward from uh K9 who appeared in Doctor Who while I was during my childhood meanwhile around us the more conventional War carries on in the distance smoke begins to rise from the latest Glide bomb hit on hak City while further along the tree line a mobile anti-shah drone team waits for Dusk and the next Russian Onslaught the their anti-aircraft gun is from a much older generation of War technology to the ground drones frolicking on the field and that is probably the technology deployed in huge quantities which will count in the end in the next episode we spend a night in a vampire Crypt watch a disabled tank being rescued and Shelter From a Russian drone