Ukrainian Armor

Ukrainian Armor is one of Ukraine’s larger private arms manufacturers, founded in Kyiv in 2014 in the wake of the Maidan revolution and the start of the war in Donbas. For most of its existence the company built mortars, armoured vehicles, and ammunition; more recently it has moved into ground robotics with the Protector, a heavy unmanned ground vehicle, and a family of remote weapon stations.

The Protector is a tracked-weight class platform of around four tonnes that carries up to 700 kilograms. Driven by a 190-horsepower diesel engine, it is rated for a 400-to-500-kilometre range and is fitted with a Starlink terminal for control beyond line of sight. It began as a logistics and casualty-evacuation mule — moving ammunition, towing trailers, and carrying wounded — and was first shown publicly at the MSPO defence exhibition in Poland in September 2024. Fitting it with the company’s Tavria-12.7 remote weapon station, a turret built around a 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine gun with optoelectronic targeting capable of engaging both ground targets and drones, turns the cargo platform into a strike vehicle. The company has described the combination as one of the first battlefield pairings of two unmanned technologies on a single chassis.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence codified the Tavria-12.7 weapon module in November 2024 and the Protector platform in June 2025 — the formal step that lets Ukrainian Armed Forces units procure them directly. Ukrainian Armor has said it plans to build around 50 of the combat variant a month. The firm is a member of the National Association of Ukrainian Defence Industries and sits among a cluster of domestic ground-robot makers — including Tencore , DevDroid , and Roboneers — whose work is coordinated in part through the state defence-tech accelerator Brave1 .