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Comment by tim333 | Hacker News Reader

From the video with one of these robots (maybe the one in the story?)

>We prepared for the combat use of these modules for a very long time. It was a very difficult sector on which the enemy was constantly conducting assault actions. That's why the infantry needed reinforcements. But the robot drone didn't just drive onto the position for a day. Instead of real fighters, an iron one held the line for a month and a half and actually fooled the Russians because they didn't even think about something like this. (https://youtu.be/Ir6sNgW91Hw?t=226)

"Very difficult" and constants assaults doesn't sound like what you describe.

I have to say if I was defending against Russians trying to kill me I'd much rather operate the gun remotely from behind a hill than sit there in range.

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This is the second comment that says that I'm downplaying these situations, so I guess I really wasn't very clear.

Small assault groups of untrained men can still be "very difficult". The defending outposts are similarly small groups. The defenders experience very long, exhausting rotations: a month is considered good: supplies are dropped by drones. This is because as of ~2025 the most dangerous part of a rotation is the infil/outfil. The record for a frontline rotation is close to 500 days (they had to dig their own well underground). Both sides are backed by drones. As someone pointed out, the "expendable" assault groups, in part, serve to draw defenders out for drones. Further, you often hear of anecdata that a defensive position was overrun, because Russians sent bodies after bodies until defenders ran out of ammo. 5:1 death rate (Russian:Ukrainian) is considered good for Russia, 10:1 is something they probably can maintain. Ukraine has to aim for 15:1. Russian personnel losses average around 30k per month since early 2025, which, I hear, is very close to how much they can regenerate at the moment. I've watched an interview on Lindybeige where someone involved with drone pilots said that pilots with 1k+ kills is not uncommon, kills in the hundreds is normal.

It's not easy to talk about the Ukraine war, because it changes so radically every N months.

>5:1 death rate (Russian:Ukrainian) is considered good for Russia

>pilots with 1k+ kills is not uncommon, kills in the hundreds is normal.

I am strongly pro-Ukraine in this conflict, but this sounds over the top and unbelievable. Are you sure this is not Ukrainian propaganda? Are there any reliable public sources about this?

I think Ukrainian propaganda would go "we can generate N times more manpower than Russia", which is the opposite of what these figures suggest. These figure are about the fact that force generation in Ukraine is a huge problem.

Edit: I first heard of these numbers from Peter Zeihan. I've since heard ballpark-similar estimates from other people. I think of it this way: Russia has a huge manpower pool. Further, their ability to extract actual manpower from it is higher (due to poverty, largely). So Ukraine likewise requires a huge battlefield advantage to break even. Further, Ukraine needs another huge advantage on top of that, so that it's painfully obvious that not only the war is unsustainable, but that it's only unsustainable to Russia: only then will Russia sue for peace. At the moment, it seems like the war is unsustainable for both, which means noone has the advantage.

> pilots with 1k+ kills is not uncommon

Incredible. I wonder what the most kills is for a single individual through direct action? There’s always the nuclear bombshell but that’s more of a team effort. These kills are through individual action.

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