I’m not sure how that is directly related to Russia and Ukraine, but in at least one way it’s indirectly related. I’m sure a lot of you have heard about US and British “exercises” about military bases and people in general being prepared to survive for 30, 60, 90, whatever number of days with what is on hand. When I first hear about that, my assumption was that there was some sort of intelligence suggesting that Putin was planning on expanding the war to involve NATO. It seems to be that this wasn’t the case. Rather, it seems that the USA (and maybe the UK?) are planning something (possibly very major) to start after the midterms, and those “exercises” were in preparation for that rather than anything Putin has planned.
UGH - my bad. Badly misposted. 
OK, so the midterms have ended, and it was a blue crash-out of the Republicans, with Democrats now holding strong majorities in both houses of Congress. What can or will the Ds do now for Ukraine, knowing Trump can veto most things?
Maybe attach big pro-Ukraine riders to the NDAA, which a president just about never vetoes?
There are a number of pro-Ukrainian Republicans in Congress. Almost certainly enough that, combined with all the Democrats, could easily override a veto.
The operative thing about everything with the next congress, Ukraine or otherwise, is how much the rather few remaining non-MAGA non-insane Rs will rediscover their conventional conservative backbone and be able to stand up to threats of the lame duck dictator wannabe.
I can’t find it now but a couple weeks ago I saw a clip from Preston Stewart (https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewart) that Putin said Russia’s goal was to cause a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Looks like they are at it. They have previously struck power generation but now they are striking water utilities. Currently Kyiv has no power and no water.
I truly cannot comprehend how this sort of thing gets no traction with our leaders (America). Russia is a terrorist state. Maybe the new Congress/Senate will step up but not sure what that will mean when the President is a Kremlin pawn.
Technology advances on the battlefield are coming at an astonishing rate.
I wonder how easily command control of these combat robots can be hijacked? That’s the most logical defense IMHO. Electronically intercept the signal, gain command and turn the wheeled robots around. Send them back and shoot the hell out of the other side.
Changing the allegiance of infantry soldiers rarely works. But, robots and drones are not inherently loyal to anyone.
Hijacked? That would be very difficult. The communications are encrypted for exactly that reason. (Not impossible but very difficult.) Jammed of course is a different story. That is MUCH easier. One way Ukraine has been avoiding this is to drop ground robots behind enemy lines. Russian jamming is of course concentrated up and forward of their lines as they don’t want to jam their own drones.
Additionally, ground robots can sit still and wait for a target for days or even weeks unlike flying drones. They can wait for supply trucks or other juicy targets behind the lines. Sometimes they attack Russian lines from behind. Often these robots are given simple AI commands to attack a set of specific target types so they can’t be jammed. They won’t be released to AI control until they are close to the lines as the AI controls are fairly simple as these are meant to be cheap drones.
There was a science-fiction story about the ultimate solution to drone jamming:
For those of you not familiar with Colin Capp’s short story “Gottlos”, the titular war machine is not a remotely controlled drone, as its contemporaries in the story are. It actually contains a disembodied human brain connected to its systems.
I feel silly spoilering an SF short story from 1969, but here we are.
I.E., if in Robocop2 RoboCain had been a tank.
We used to call these “mines”.
Now I’m picturing a cliché naval mine, the kind that were spherical and studded with contact triggers, only on robot legs and chasing someone desperately fleeing in a life-or-death version of “tag”.
I saw that in an episode of Dark Mirror, in Netflix. What could go wrong?
Spoiler: the robot dog won.
Actually the Ukrainian who was interviewed about them called them mobile mines so yeah there are a lot of similarities. In particular with the artillery deployed mines that they have so effectively used for several years now. They are often used in the same way.
The drone has a basket that the injured soldier crawls into.
I see a lot of potential for civilian search and rescue. Much cheaper to rescue a hiker or climber with a drone compared to sending a rescue team.
This could save a lot of soldiers. Especially if minefields prohibit conventional medical evac.
If a drone can be used for evacuation, can’t it also be used for manned infiltration?
Or course. Ukraine has been depositing autonomous ground vehicles behind Russian lines already. If it were important to risk human lives, I’m sure they’d do it.
Ukraine used heavy bomber drones to airdrop kamikaze and strike ground robots (unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs) up to 10 kilometers (over 6 miles) behind Russian lines during Operation Vivaldi in the Lyman and Donetsk sectors
Yes, but I expect that a human body is close to the maximum load of a drone. Infiltrating a single soldier is not very useful, so you’d need as many drones as people in the strike force. And then more for ammo and other supplies. Get that many drones flying at once and the operation probably stops being clandestine.
Impossible, if they’re implemented at all competently.
Which means we can probably expect to see Russia’s attempts immediately hijacked.
As I’ve said many times, we need new vocabulary here. A “drone” can be of any size. If you can make a helicopter that can carry twenty soldiers and their gear, then you can make that helicopter into a drone. Is this the most practical method for manned infiltration? I have no idea. But there’s no reason it couldn’t be done.