Russia: Robotic swarms will replace soldiers in combat

Robots will replacesoldiers on the battlefield in Russia according to Vitaly Davydov, the deputy director of the country's Advanced Research Foundation.

Davydov said ''living fighters will gradually begin to be replaced by their robotic ‘'brothers’ who can act faster, more accurately and more selectively than people.''

Russia seeking to augment its existing military with new, autonomous capabilities.

The Russian Ministry of Defence is working on a new generation of combat machines for training and possible future use although some the country's robots haveunderperformed expectations in combat.

At the center of this design is an uncrewed ground vehicle called theMarker UGV which resemblesa miniature tank with treads and turrets.

According to Samuel Bendett, an adviser at the Center for Naval Analysis, ''there is a still-classified Russianmilitary robotics road-map that sketches out various stages of Russian unnamed military developments, which undoubtedly has been influenced by Russian military actions and experience in Syria.''

''The Ministry of Defence is discussing the eventual use of robotic swarms in combat— and Marker is definitely the platform to test that out,'' he added.

Russia plans to testswarms of ground robotslater in 2020. United States also hasmany robotic programs under way .