Ukraine’s former defense minister launches ‘Manhattan Project’ for killer robots

LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine needs a “new Manhattan Project,” former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told a standing-room-only crowd of self-proclaimed tech nerds on Saturday at IT Arena here, the country’s biggest annual technology conference.

Then he played an AI-generated clip of what he meant: a robopunk mix of humanoid and crab-like ground robots skittering across a barren front line, doing work that is still too complicated for the robots Ukraine fields today.

The video laid out Fedorov’s vision for an Army of Robots , a force of two-legged upright and other ground robots that would take over many of the front line’s most dangerous but necessary jobs from soldiers.

“Our idea is to combine engineers, startups and capital into one ecosystem so we can launch humanoid-like robots on the battlefield,” Fedorov told Defense News in an exclusive interview after his presentation.

“We want to eventually substitute our infantry with these robots.”

To get there, Fedorov is calling on specialists in robotics, AI, sensors and autonomous systems to pool their talent in the kind of concentrated wartime push that built the first atomic bomb, and to focus it on the machines he says will one day replace Ukraine’s infantry .

The 35-year-old aims for the group to have its first confirmed battlefield result from a humanoid-like robot within six months and, within a year, an assault in which robots take on the most dangerous parts of a mission with no infantry alongside them.

To hit the six-month mark, there isn’t time to spend on research and development, he said, so he will begin by investing in companies with weapons that have already been tested and shown some market viability.

Fedorov wants Ukraine to seize the initiative in the war’s next technological cycle before Russia – whose far larger army and industrial base let it scale new weapons quickly – gets there first.

“Russia always thinks about new strategies, how to hack our frontlines,” he said. “We need to be the first side to hack our frontlines.”

Robots are only one of the defense tech areas that the former minister plans to develop within the new project.

“It could be robots, it could be autonomous systems,” he said. “We will have three key directions: sensors and robots, cheaper anti-jet-Shahed missiles, and AI strike drones and missiles.”

Under Fedorov’s plan, members of the Army of Robots will identify a battlefield problem, find a technical solution and a team, provide resources for development, test the product with troops in real conditions and scale what works.

It is the same model he used for the Army of Drones, which he started in 2022 as Ukraine’s digital transformation minister and which opened the market to Ukrainian drone makers, launched government procurement and operator training and helped form the first strike drone units.

A Ukrainian soldier controls an unmanned vehicle during a field test of its off-road capabilities in an undisclosed location in Zaporizhzhia region on June 5, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Genya Savilov / AFP via Getty Images)

“The Army of Drones ... changed everything in our country and in the world and, I think, in the future of the world,” he said. “Now we are trying to build the same ecosystem for robots.”

Ukrainian troops already lean heavily on ground robots for assaults and basic tasks, carrying out more than 25,000 logistics and evacuation missions in August – 3.3 times more than in January, according to the Defense Ministry.

But most of the futuristic robot designs featured in Fedorov’s video, humanoids included, are not yet used in combat in Ukraine today, and the ground robots that are in use almost always have a human operator at the controls, usually over Starlink.

Fedorov said the ambitious effort will involve multiple companies working on different stages of the product lifecycle, with some making components, some assembling complete robots and others developing software to run them.

“We have some funds for these first companies,” Fedorov said, declining to name names. “It means that we have two or three companies that will be our partners in these directions.”

The Army of Robots will include a venture fund to invest in technology teams, its own defense-tech companies and a research and development arm, according to a press statement issued after the announcement.

The initiative comes weeks after Fedorov announced that he was starting a new defense company, with Palantir CEO Alex Karp as its first investor .

Fedorov told Defense News the company will start with a corporate fund and may later launch its own venture fund.

The biggest challenge facing the development and deployment of these next-gen robots is the necessary speed of innovation, Fedorov said.

Ukraine has to field these robots fast enough to save its infantry and stay ahead of Russia, which he said has learned to copy Ukraine’s battlefield innovations and scale them rapidly.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is heading into another winter of Russian strikes with air-defense interceptors in short supply .

The weekend Fedorov made his announcement, Russian drones hit kindergartens and university buildings in Kyiv, struck a large civilian hospital and destroyed a food market and multiple gas stations outside the city, killing at least three people and injuring dozens in a combined aerial attack that lasted days.

“We don’t have enough time,” he said. “We need to achieve these results as soon as possible.”

Katie Livingstone is the Ukraine correspondent for Defense News and Military Times. Based in Kyiv, she has covered Russia's full-scale invasion since its first days. She is a former Fulbright fellow whose award-winning work has appeared in outlets across Europe and the U.S.

乌克兰利沃夫——乌克兰前国防部长米哈伊洛·费多罗夫周六在该国最大的年度技术大会——IT Arena上对挤满自称技术极客的听众表示，乌克兰需要一个“新的曼哈顿计划”。

然后他播放了一段人工智能生成的视频片段，来说明他的意思：一段机器人朋克风格的视频，由人形和螃蟹状的地面机器人组成，它们在荒芜的前线快速移动，执行着对乌克兰目前部署的机器人来说仍然过于复杂的任务。

该视频阐述了费多罗夫对机器人军队的愿景，这是一支由双足直立机器人和其他地面机器人组成的部队，将从士兵手中接管前线许多最危险但又必不可少的工作。

费多罗夫在演讲后接受《防务新闻》独家采访时表示：“我们的想法是将工程师、初创公司和资本结合起来，形成一个生态系统，以便我们能够在战场上部署人形机器人。”

“我们最终希望用这些机器人取代我们的步兵。”

为了实现这一目标，费多罗夫呼吁机器人、人工智能、传感器和自主系统领域的专家们汇聚他们的才能，像当年制造第一颗原子弹那样集中精力进行战争，并将重点放在他所说的有朝一日将取代乌克兰步兵的机器上。

这位 35 岁的年轻人希望该组织在六个月内取得人形机器人首次在战场上取得的确切战果，并在一年内进行一次突袭，让机器人承担任务中最危险的部分，而无需步兵的参与。

他说，为了在六个月内完成目标，没有时间进行研发，因此他将首先投资那些武器已经过测试并显示出一定市场可行性的公司。

费多罗夫希望乌克兰在战争的下一个技术周期中抢占先机，赶在俄罗斯之前——俄罗斯拥有远比乌克兰庞大的军队和工业基础，可以迅速生产新式武器。

他说：“俄罗斯总是在思考新的战略，如何突破我们的前线。我们必须成为第一个突破我们前线的一方。”

机器人只是这位前部长计划在新项目中开发的国防技术领域之一。

他说：“可能是机器人，也可能是自主系统。我们将有三个关键方向：传感器和机器人、更便宜的反喷气式“沙赫德”导弹，以及人工智能攻击无人机和导弹。”

根据费多罗夫的计划，机器人军团的成员将确定战场上的问题，找到技术解决方案和团队，提供开发资源，在真实条件下用部队测试产品，并将有效的方案推广应用。

这是他为无人机部队所采用的同一模式。他于 2022 年担任乌克兰数字化转型部长时启动了无人机部队，该部队向乌克兰无人机制造商开放了市场，启动了政府采购和操作员培训，并帮助组建了第一批攻击无人机部队。

2026年6月5日，在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰期间，一名乌克兰士兵在扎波罗热州一处未公开地点操控一辆无人驾驶车辆进行越野性能实地测试。（Genya Savilov / AFP via Getty Images）

“无人机大军……改变了我们国家、世界乃至世界的未来，”他说。“现在我们正努力为机器人构建同样的生态系统。”

据国防部称，乌克兰军队已经大量依赖地面机器人进行攻击和执行基本任务，8 月份执行了超过 25,000 次后勤和撤离任务，是 1 月份的 3.3 倍。

但费多罗夫视频中展示的大多数未来机器人设计，包括人形机器人，目前在乌克兰的战斗中尚未投入使用，而正在使用的地面机器人几乎总是由人类操作员控制，通常是通过星链进行控制。

费多罗夫表示，这项雄心勃勃的计划将涉及多家公司，它们将参与产品生命周期的不同阶段，有的公司负责制造零部件，有的公司负责组装完整的机器人，还有的公司负责开发运行机器人的软件。

费多罗夫表示：“我们已经为这些首批公司提供了一些资金。”但他拒绝透露公司名称。“这意味着我们将有两到三家公司成为我们在这些领域的合作伙伴。”

根据公告发布后发布的新闻稿，机器人军团将包括一个风险投资基金，用于投资技术团队；它还将拥有自己的国防科技公司以及一个研发部门。

就在几周前，费多罗夫宣布他将创办一家新的国防公司，Palantir 首席执行官 Alex Karp 是该公司的首位投资者。

费多罗夫告诉《防务新闻》，该公司将首先设立企业基金，之后可能会推出自己的风险投资基金。

费多罗夫表示，下一代机器人的研发和部署面临的最大挑战是创新速度的必要性。

乌克兰必须尽快部署这些机器人，以拯救其步兵并保持领先于俄罗斯。他说，俄罗斯已经学会了复制乌克兰的战场创新并迅速扩大规模。

与此同时，乌克兰即将迎来又一个冬季，俄罗斯的空袭威胁依然严峻，而乌克兰的防空拦截器却严重短缺。

费多罗夫发表声明的那个周末，俄罗斯无人机袭击了基辅的幼儿园和大学建筑，袭击了一家大型民用医院，并摧毁了城外的一个食品市场和多个加油站，在持续数天的联合空中袭击中，造成至少三人死亡，数十人受伤。

“我们时间不够，”他说。“我们需要尽快取得这些成果。”

凯蒂·利文斯通是《防务新闻》和《军事时报》的乌克兰特派记者。她常驻基辅，自俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰之初便开始报道此事。她曾是富布赖特学者，其获奖作品发表于欧洲和美国的多家媒体。