Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement.

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.

Defense startups 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 startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unmanned ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: $35,000, or roughly 10% of the cost of an imported model.

  • FuglyDuck
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    82 months ago

    If you think they’re “just” ceremonial… lol.

    Yeah, a large aspect of their duties are protecting the pope but the Swiss guard are all trained by the Swiss army before going to Vatican City.

    And while they do chiefly rely on soft power almost exclusively- and by no means are they capable of engaging in actual war fare- they are not incapable of smaller actions.

    There’s an awful lot of shadows at the highest echelons of the catholic state (and a shit load of money and loot, too.)

    • Flying SquidM
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      42 months ago

      No, not ceremonial, just adorable.

      Like I said, they also have sub machine guns.

      • FuglyDuck
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        112 months ago

        It’s a little orange, you ask me.

        I prefer the beefeater’s:

        Though if you want to talk about silly hats… there’s that amusing display at the Pakistan-India border.m, during the changing of the guards.