CEO of Russia's defense industry conglomerate Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, announced last week that the new remotely-controlled BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle may soon be subjected to a trial by fire in the Ukrainian conflict zone.
The new Sinitsa module developed by Rostec subsidiary High Precision Systems essentially allows a BMP-3 to be controlled from a specialized control station or even a computer tablet.
Chemezov also suggested that 2S25M self-propelled anti-tank guns may also be fitted with similar remote control modules.
Commenting on this development, retired Russian Army colonel and veteran military analyst Viktor Litovkin told Sputnik that the BMP-3 is an infantry fighting vehicle and not a “ground drone” of some kind, noting that its remote-control capabilities have been already repeatedly demonstrated at the annual ARMY military expos.
He further pointed out that BMP-3 is a relatively expensive piece of hardware as compared to drones.
Litovkin also voiced his skepticism about the prospects of outfitting the 2S25M anti-tank guns with remote-control systems, arguing that such weapons are relatively cumbersome and require a human gunner to be fired with precision.
Meanwhile, military journalist and deputy chief editor of “Literary Russia” newspaper Aleksey Borzenko suggested that while the efforts to outfit armored vehicles with remote-control capabilities do highlight the drive to “optimize warfare,” it is too early to talk about “tracked drones” as a lot of related systems are still in development.
He did argue, however, that many other countries besides Russia, such as the United States, are currently working on implementing similar technologies.
“Everything is heading towards robot wars, figuratively speaking,” Borzenko said. “When soldiers won’t be waging war directly but instead would sit behind computers fight wars like it were video games.”