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Ukrainian start-ups create low-cost robots to fight Russia: ‘war is mathematics’

  • Defence start-ups across Ukraine are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops

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Employees at a start-up run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unstaffed ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Photo: AP
Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international help, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement.
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An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.

Defence start-ups across Ukraine – about 250 according to industry estimates – are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops.

Employees at a start-up run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unstaffed ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: US$35,000, or roughly 10 per cent of the cost of an imported model.

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Denysenko asked that Associated Press not publish details of the location to protect the infrastructure and the people working there.

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