Robot with note saying ‘Grandma, hop on!’ saves elderly woman from Russian forces

Ukrainian soldiers saved an elderly woman’s life by asking her to hop on the back of a robot.

The woman, 72, was spotted by an aerial drone walking between dead bodies on a bullet-riddled road near the city of Lyman, Ukraine.

Aerial footage shows the unnamed woman leaning on two walking sticks as she makes her way through the region ravaged by Russian fighting.

So fighters from the 60th Separate Mechanised Brigade launched a rescue mission using an unmanned ground system unit called Cerberus.

The unit shared a video on social media showing one of the fighters watching the live feed as the woman stumbled.

He says: ‘It looks like shortness of breath or something.’

To avoid scaring her, the servicemen draped a blanket over the bot and left a written message saying: ‘Grandma, hop on!’

Video from the command centre shows the soldiers telling the woman, ‘Come on, come on, that’s it!’ as she climbs on the back of the vehicle.

One adds: ‘Zoom in on its legs, please, we want to see if they’re catching on the tarmac so that, God forbid, its tracks don’t get damaged.’

The 3rd Army Corp – which the 60th is part of – wrote on X on Saturday that the woman’s house of 53 years was destroyed by Russian forces.

Three other villagers were evacuated as part of the four-hour mission.

The corp added on X: ‘Once they reached an armoured vehicle, fighters from the 1st Mechanised Battalion took them out of the combat zone and transferred to the Angels patronage service from the 3rd Corps.

‘The Third Army Corps urges: evacuate in advance to preserve the most precious thing – life.’

As she was taken into the back of the battalion’s truck, one soldier can be heard saying: ‘That’s it, we can all finally breathe… Thank God.’

Lyman sits on the banks of the Siversky Donets River, which has served as a natural division between the Russian and Ukrainian front lines.

There has been a tug of war over the ‘Gates of Donbas’ since the Russia-Ukraine conflict ignited in 2022.

As a vital railway hub, the Kremlin seized the city in May 2022, only for Ukrainian troops to reclaim it months later.

While the city remains under Kyiv, Russian forces burst back into it in December, making it part of the war’s ‘grey zone’ where control is unclear.

It comes after Ukrainian soldiers evacuated a cat and a dog from the frontline using a robotic aerial vehicle.

Fighters from the 14th Prince Roman the Great Separate Mechanised Brigade were sending supplies to their fellow soldiers by drone.

‘The drone that delivered the supplies returned with some passengers on board – a cat and a dog,’ UAnimals, an animal welfare organisation, said.

The pets, which had travelled some 12km by drone, were later adopted by soldiers.

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