利沃夫，乌克兰——乌克兰需要一场“新曼哈顿计划”，前国防部长米哈伊洛·费多罗夫周六在该国最大的年度科技会议IT Arena上对挤满全场、自称为科技极客的人群如是说。
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine needs a “new Manhattan Project,” former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told a standing-room-only crowd of self-proclaimed tech nerds on Saturday at IT Arena here, the country’s biggest annual technology conference.
随后，他播放了一段AI生成的视频来展示他的构想：一种机器人朋克风格的混合体，由人形和蟹状地面机器人组成，在荒芜的前线穿梭，执行着乌克兰目前部署的机器人仍无法胜任的复杂任务。
Then he played an AI-generated clip of what he meant: a robopunk mix of humanoid and crab-like ground robots skittering across a barren front line, doing work that is still too complicated for the robots Ukraine fields today.
这段视频展现了费多罗夫对“机器人军团”的愿景——一支由双足直立机器人及其他地面机器人组成的部队，将接管前线许多最危险但必要的士兵任务。
The video laid out Fedorov’s vision for an Army of Robots a force of two-legged upright and other ground robots that would take over many of the front line’s most dangerous but necessary jobs from soldiers.
“我们的想法是将工程师、初创企业和资本整合为一个生态系统，从而能够在战场上部署类人机器人，”费多罗夫在演讲后接受《防务新闻》独家采访时表示。
“Our idea is to combine engineers, startups and capital into one ecosystem so we can launch humanoid-like robots on the battlefield,” Fedorov told Defense News in an exclusive interview after his presentation.
“我们最终希望用这些机器人替代我们的步兵。”为实现这一目标，费多罗夫呼吁机器人技术、人工智能、传感器和自主系统领域的专家汇聚才智，进行类似当年制造第一颗原子弹那样的战时集中攻关，并将精力聚焦于他所说的有朝一日将取代乌克兰步兵的机器上。这位35岁的官员的目标是：该团队在六个月内取得类人机器人的首个确认战场成果，并在一年内实现一次由机器人承担任务中最危险环节、无步兵随行的突击行动。
“We want to eventually substitute our infantry with these robots.”To get there, Fedorov is calling on specialists in robotics, AI, sensors and autonomous systems to pool their talent in the kind of concentrated wartime push that built the first atomic bomb, and to focus it on the machines he says will one day replace Ukraine’s infantry The 35-year-old aims for the group to have its first confirmed battlefield result from a humanoid-like robot within six months and, within a year, an assault in which robots take on the most dangerous parts of a mission with no infantry alongside them.
他说，要达到六个月的目标，没有时间花在研发上，因此他将从投资那些武器已经过测试并展现出一定市场可行性的公司开始。
To hit the six-month mark, there isn’t time to spend on research and development, he said, so he will begin by investing in companies with weapons that have already been tested and shown some market viability.
费多罗夫希望乌克兰能在战争的下一轮技术周期中抢占先机，赶在俄罗斯之前——俄罗斯庞大得多的军队和工业基础使其能够迅速扩大新武器的生产规模。
Fedorov wants Ukraine to seize the initiative in the war’s next technological cycle before Russia – whose far larger army and industrial base let it scale new weapons quickly – gets there first.
“俄罗斯总是在思考新的策略，试图攻破我们的前线，”他说。“我们需要成为率先攻破前线的一方。”机器人只是这位前部长计划在新项目中发展的国防技术领域之一。
“Russia always thinks about new strategies, how to hack our frontlines,” he said. “We need to be the first side to hack our frontlines.”Robots are only one of the defense tech areas that the former minister plans to develop within the new project.
“它可以是机器人，也可以是自主系统，”他说。“我们将有三个重点方向：传感器和机器人、更廉价的反‘见证者’（Shahed）导弹，以及人工智能攻击无人机和导弹。”根据费多罗夫的计划，“机器人军队”的成员将识别战场问题，寻找技术解决方案和团队，提供开发资源，在真实条件下与部队一起测试产品，并推广行之有效的方案。
“It could be robots, it could be autonomous systems,” he said. “We will have three key directions: sensors and robots, cheaper anti-jet-Shahed missiles, and AI strike drones and missiles.”Under Fedorov’s plan, members of the Army of Robots will identify a battlefield problem, find a technical solution and a team, provide resources for development, test the product with troops in real conditions and scale what works.
这与他在2022年担任乌克兰数字化转型部长时发起的“无人机军队”所采用的模式相同。该项目向乌克兰无人机制造商开放了市场，启动了政府采购和操作员培训，并帮助组建了首批攻击无人机部队。
It is the same model he used for the Army of Drones, which he started in 2022 as Ukraine’s digital transformation minister and which opened the market to Ukrainian drone makers, launched government procurement and operator training and helped form the first strike drone units.
“‘无人机军队’……改变了我们国家、全世界，我认为也改变了世界的未来，”他说。“现在我们正试图为机器人建立同样的生态系统。”据乌克兰国防部统计，乌克兰军队目前已高度依赖地面机器人执行突击和基础任务，仅8月份就执行了超过2.5万次后勤和撤离任务，是1月份的3.3倍。
“The Army of Drones ... changed everything in our country and in the world and, I think, in the future of the world,” he said. “Now we are trying to build the same ecosystem for robots.”Ukrainian troops already lean heavily on ground robots for assaults and basic tasks, carrying out more than 25,000 logistics and evacuation missions in August – 3.3 times more than in January, according to the Defense Ministry.
但费多罗夫视频中展示的大多数未来派机器人设计（包括人形机器人）目前尚未在乌克兰战场上使用，而现有的地面机器人几乎都需要人类操作员通过星链（Starlink）进行远程控制。
But most of the futuristic robot designs featured in Fedorov’s video, humanoids included, are not yet used in combat in Ukraine today, and the ground robots that are in use almost always have a human operator at the controls, usually over Starlink.
费多罗夫表示，这项雄心勃勃的计划将涉及多家公司，它们将参与产品生命周期的不同阶段，有的负责制造零部件，有的负责组装完整的机器人，还有的负责开发运行这些机器人的软件。
Fedorov said the ambitious effort will involve multiple companies working on different stages of the product lifecycle, with some making components, some assembling complete robots and others developing software to run them.
“我们为这些首批公司准备了一些资金，”费多罗夫说道，但他拒绝透露具体名称。“这意味着我们将有两到三家公司成为这些方向的合作伙伴。”根据公告发布后的一份新闻声明，“机器人军队”（Army of Robots）将包括一个用于投资技术团队的风险基金、其自有的国防科技公司以及一个研发部门。
“We have some funds for these first companies,” Fedorov said, declining to name names. “It means that we have two or three companies that will be our partners in these directions.”The Army of Robots will include a venture fund to invest in technology teams, its own defense-tech companies and a research and development arm, according to a press statement issued after the announcement.
该倡议是在费多罗夫宣布创办一家新的国防公司几周后提出的，Palantir首席执行官亚历克斯·卡普（Alex Karp）是该公司的首位投资者。费多罗夫告诉《防务新闻》，该公司将从企业基金起步，未来可能会推出自己的风险投资基金。
The initiative comes weeks after Fedorov announced that he was starting a new defense company, with Palantir CEO Alex Karp as its first investor Fedorov told Defense News the company will start with a corporate fund and may later launch its own venture fund.
费多罗夫表示，这些下一代机器人开发和部署所面临的最大挑战是创新所需的速度。
The biggest challenge facing the development and deployment of these next-gen robots is the necessary speed of innovation, Fedorov said.
乌克兰必须足够快地部署这些机器人，以挽救其步兵并保持对俄罗斯的领先优势。他指出，俄罗斯已经学会了模仿乌克兰的战场创新并迅速进行规模化应用。
Ukraine has to field these robots fast enough to save its infantry and stay ahead of Russia, which he said has learned to copy Ukraine’s battlefield innovations and scale them rapidly.
与此同时，乌克兰正迎来又一个遭受俄罗斯袭击的冬天，防空拦截弹供应短缺。在费多罗夫宣布这一消息的周末，俄罗斯无人机袭击了基辅的幼儿园和大学建筑，击中了一家大型民用医院，并摧毁了城外的一个食品市场和多个加油站。这场持续数日的联合空中袭击造成至少三人死亡，数十人受伤。
Ukraine, meanwhile, is heading into another winter of Russian strikes with air-defense interceptors in short supply The weekend Fedorov made his announcement, Russian drones hit kindergartens and university buildings in Kyiv, struck a large civilian hospital destroyed a food market and multiple gas stations outside the city, killing at least three people and injuring dozens in a combined aerial attack that lasted days.
“我们没有足够的时间，”他说。“我们需要尽快取得这些成果。”
“We don’t have enough time,” he said. “We need to achieve these results as soon as possible.”