CNBC reports that the US has started testing American humanoid combat robots in Ukraine.
According to the developer, Foundation Future Industries, the deployment is the first known deployment of humanoid robots in a combat zone in history.
Foundation Future is a San Francisco-based startup founded in April 2024. It develops general-purpose humanoid robots aimed at addressing labour shortages in manufacturing, logistics, domestic settings, and defence applications.
The company's flagship product — the Phantom — is roughly 5'9"–5'11" tall and weighs 176–180 lb. It is designed to lift approximately 90 lb and perform physical tasks in complex or high-risk environments. The robot has five-fingered hands, camera-first vision, and an LLM-driven autonomy system that supports both independent operation and supervised teleoperation.
Foundation Future has secured approximately $24 million in Pentagon research contracts (U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force) for testing the humanoids.
Two Phantom units were deployed to Ukraine in February 2026 for frontline logistics and reconnaissance. Eventually, the humanoid could begin wielding weapons.
Foundation Future aims to send an upgraded humanoid variant — Phantom 2 — to Ukraine this year.
Company CEO Sanket Pathak claims that the upgraded humanoid will have "superhuman abilities" and double the payload capacity.
Pathak previously founded and led Synapse Financial Technologies, a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) fintech platform. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2024 following a disruptive collapse of its service and is reportedly under criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Eric Trump, the second son of President Donald Trump, invested in the company and, in March 2026, joined it as chief strategy adviser.
Eric's involvment in the compnay and the Pentagon contract have been frowned upon by Democrats.
In lighter vein, Foundation Future could well collapse as did Synapse. Or, it could one day tie-up with the Adani Defence to manufacture disposable Agniveers for the Indian Armed Forces!
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