The first unit equipped with strike robots is to be formed by the Russian Army, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told reporters during his visit to the 766 UPTK Production and Technological Company. According to the Russian media, an experimental unit will be equipped with five URAN-9 complexes, each consisting of four UGVs and a mobile command station. The 776 UPTK officials confirmed the delivery in the near future of a new batch of 20 URAN-9 armed UGVs to the Russian Army.
In addition to URAN-9, the 766 UPTK company has also developed and supplied the Russian Army with URAN-6 mine-clearing robots and URAN-14 robotic fire-fighting systems. URAN-6 was employed in Syria and is currently operated by the engineering units of Russia’s peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh.
URAN-9 Details
The URAN-9 armed tracked UGV was unveiled in September 2016 during the ARMY-2016 International Military-Technical Forum in Russia. It completed acceptance trials in 2020.
The URAN-9 is designed to deliver combined combat, reconnaissance and counter-terrorism units with remote reconnaissance and fire support. It can be used fully autonomously on a predefined road or manually operated by one man from control station either in a truck or in a small backpack control station. The UGV can be fitted with different weapons according to the mission profile. Options include four ATAKA anti-tank guided missiles, developed by the Kolomna-based Engineering design bureau of the High Precision Weapons (HPW) holding. The other options include IGLA or VERBA surface-to-air missiles of the same Manufacturer, or KORNET ATGM developed by the Shipunov KBP company which is also member of the HPW holding.
The URAN-9 is also armed with the 30-mm automatic cannon and six ready-to-launch SHMEL reactive flamethrowers. There is two ATAKA missile launchers and three SHMEL on each side of the turret. URAN-9 is powered with diesel-electric technologies which allow it to reach a 35km/h speed on highways, which slows down to 10 km/h in off-road conditions.
Yury Laskin
