Over the past few years, Russia has made significant technological breakthroughs in the development and exploitation of unmanned systems, although their quality is the subject of domestic and international scrutiny. Most notably, Russia supplied reconnaissance drones to rebels in Eastern Ukraine. These have bolstered rebels’ accuracy in targeting Ukrainian government forces. Despite the Russian domestic industry’s inability to meet its nation’s full demand for such systems – a shortcoming that prompts foreign technology purchases – the Russian Ministry of Defense has big plans for unmanned and robotics platforms and has been working on several concepts.

Russian daily Izvestia recently learned of one such development – an unmanned battlefield complex resembling the Terminator, designed by Defense Ministry’s 766th Production and Technology Agency (JSC UPTK 766). Earlier, the UPTK developed auxiliary equipment such as robotic crawler machines used for demining (Uranium-6) and firefighting (Uran-14). The current development features armed coaxial machine guns and several fighting modules. Izvestia obtained an image of this battlefield complex, which includes a tracked chassis on a soft suspension, an optical-radar station, cameras, thermal imaging and night vision devices. The machine appears to be armed with a coaxial machine gun; additionally, there are boxes on each side of the machine that remotely resemble aircraft nacelles. JSC 766 UPTK refused to comment to Izvestia on the functions and features of this technology, citing military secrecy, and the Defense Ministry’s press service also declined a request for comment.