Armed Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle Study

Executive Summary

An unmanned ground vehicle, or UGV, is a tracked robot carrying sensors, weapons, or wounded soldiers. Estonia's Milrem THeMIS has been operational since 2019 and used in Ukraine for casualty evacuation, mine-laying, and as a remote weapons platform. Ukrainian forces conducted a reported robot-only assault near Kharkiv in late 2024 and have since fielded the Lyut combat UGV. Russian programmes (Uran-9 in Syria 2018, Marker) showed limited success, with documented communications-loss problems. Lithuania fields no armed ground robots and has no domestic prime at scale; Brolis GaSb sensors could supply EO/IR sights, but the platform would need partnership or import. A study by the Ministry of National Defence, with Seimas and industry input, would assess fit to Lithuanian doctrine, affordability within the 2026 weapons envelope of roughly 1.7 billion euros, the legal predicate under Article 142 wartime conditions, and resilience to Russian electronic warfare (Borisoglebsk-2, Krasukha-4, Murmansk-BN). Force size, variants, partner, and human-on-loop authority are Lithuanian determinations.

The Problem

Trench and urban assault operations are the highest-casualty missions in the Ukraine war. Ukrainian units have reported severe infantry losses in direct-assault roles, with point-man and exposed machine-gun positions taking the worst of it. Russian forces are reconstituting and the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, along with the Suwalki gap, are the likely close-combat zones in any cross-border scenario. Russian electronic warfare assets (Borisoglebsk-2, Krasukha-4, Murmansk-BN) jam communications and GPS across wide envelopes, which any tele-operated or semi-autonomous UGV must survive.

Lithuania fields no armed ground robots. There is no domestic prime building combat UGVs at scale, no doctrine for integrating them with infantry platoons, no training pipeline for operators, and no legal framework for human-on-loop weapons authority outside conventional rules of engagement. Allied programmes (US Robotic Combat Vehicle light/medium/heavy, Estonian Milrem THeMIS, Ukrainian Brave1 marketplace listings) exist as reference points but have not been evaluated against Lithuanian terrain, threat geometry, or procurement law.

Without action: Lithuanian infantry continue to occupy the most lethal positions in any close-combat scenario where allied or adversary forces have already moved into robot-supported assault. The capability gap widens as Ukrainian and Estonian operational data accumulate.