Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to boost the country's armed forces includes a focus on the use of domestic military robots, according to a report in the RiaNovosti state news agency.
Russia's military has been shifting toward the use of unmanned systems for some time, investing heavily in remotely piloted and autonomous systems.
In Syria, the Russian military has already deployed the Uran-6, an unmanned ground vehicle that helps remove roadside bombs, mined and unexploded ordnance, though the operating experience did not go as expected.
Senior Research Officer Andrei Anisimov told a conference at the Kuznetsov Naval Academy in Russia that the Uran-9’s performance in Syria revealed "modern Russian combat Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are not able to perform the assigned tasks in the classical types of combat operations."
The defense ministry has asked for proposals from various military-industrial enterprises by next year.
The initiative, per a source who spoke with RiaNovosti, said the initiative is to address the "virtual absence of a unified concept for the use of military robotics by the Russian armed forces."