Meet “Berserk”: Ukraine’s Robotic Drone Killer

Berserk creates a bubble of protection from Russian drones overhead.

Kvertus’ Berserk UGV

Ukraine’s counter-drone tech is evolving at a steady clip. Today we’re looking at “Berserk:” a rolling, battery-powered middle finger aimed squarely at Russian drones.

If you’re picturing the love child of a Mars rover and a WiFi jammer, you’re in the right zip code. In the age of cheap death from above, this might be Ukraine’s best answer for frontline work: an angry little robot that jams everything in sight.

Let’s take a closer look at how the Kvertus AD Berserk was built, what makes it tick, and why Russian drone pilots might want to find a new line of work. Essentially, this is a remote-piloted, uncrewed ground robot that creates a bubble of protection from Russian drones overhead.

From Exhibit Hall Curiosity to Frontline Workhorse

The story of Kvertus reads like a modern Ukrainian legend, equal parts Silicon Valley, equal parts frontline foxhole. Back in 2014, before drones started rewriting the rules of war, Kvertus founder Andrii Znaichenko was strolling through a tech show in China and spotted an anti-drone gun.

Fast forward a few months, and civilian quadcopters were dropping grenades on Ukrainian trenches. The rest, as they say, is battlefield necessity.

By 2017, Znaichenko’s garage project had turned into a real company with an even more real mission: protect Ukrainian soldiers from the buzzing menace above. Kvertus started small: just a handful of engineers and tinkerers churning out “Star Wars” gear for a country that had suddenly found itself on the frontlines of drone warfare.

Today, the company employs over a hundred staffers, ships thousands of anti-drone devices a month, and has NATO codification and Ukrainian MOD contracts to prove it’s not just vaporware.

The Berserk is Kvertus’ new heavy hitter. This is a remote-controlled, ground-based robot built to crawl, crawl, and jam everything in its path. It’s designed to roll into the ugliest parts of the battlefield, flip on its electronic “foghorn,” and blind any Russian drone operator within the bubble.

Berserk’s software is tailored to disrupt all frequency bands typically used by Russian FPV kamikazes, multirotor bombers, and the fixed-wing pests that have made life hell for Ukrainian infantry.

Basically, anything in the 720-950 MHz and 950-1100 MHz zones, plus all 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz broadcasts in its kill box.

Speaking of kill box, the range of disruption is still classified, although I’ve seen some unverified distances out there that I won’t repeat here.

It’s got autonomy for up to 12 hours, meaning it can loiter in no-man’s land all day, and a control link that stretches to 20 km if operators want to stay well out of harm’s way.

Built for the Dirty Work

Berserk is a workhorse built for some of the dirtiest jobs in the war.

When it comes to evacuating the wounded from the so-called “zero line,” Berserk is proving to be a huge asset. Medics heading into the most dangerous corners of the battlefield now have an electronic bodyguard in tow.

By jamming the signals drones use to home in on heat signatures or radio traffic, Berserk helps keep the skies just quiet enough for casualties to get out alive. I’ve written about how the so-called “Golden Hour,” the window of time to CASEVAC or MEDEVAC a casualty to ensure survival, is shrinking thanks to the drone war.

But countermeasures like Berserk put some of that precious time back on the clock.

In a war where artillery shells and FPV drones seem to hunt in packs, this little robot can mean the difference between making it home and vanishing into the chaos.

Also, de-mining is a thankless task at the best of times, and doing it while Russian FPVs are circling overhead makes it borderline suicidal. Berserk steps in as a mobile shield, jamming enemy drones and blocking out the operators trying to pick off demining teams from miles away.

With this protection, engineers have a fighting chance to clear mines and IEDs without turning every movement into a potential YouTube highlight for Russian Telegram channels.

On the offensive, Berserk stays right with Ukraine’s assault groups as they push forward. Every advance risks discovery by a swarm of cheap Russian drones, but with Berserk rolling alongside the infantry, those “eyes in the sky” are left blinking and confused.

Surprise becomes possible again, not because of some fancy new tactic, but because a jamming robot is short-circuiting the drone feeds that might otherwise broadcast every movement to Russian artillery.

Finally, logistics is the beating heart of any army, and Russian drones know it. Fuel convoys, ammo trucks, and supply columns have all become prime targets for spotter drones relaying coordinates back to Russian guns.

Here again, Berserk’s role is clear: keep the lifeline open. By denying Russian operators the real-time video they rely on, Berserk helps ensure that Ukraine’s war machine stays fueled, armed, and in the fight.

Berserk is already being snapped up in bulk, with Kvertus confirming that dozens of orders are in progress and more in the pipeline. The demand? Simple: field units have tested it, and it works.

What makes Berserk a leap forward is its layered approach to jamming and control. The system is built on a rugged, all-terrain platform with a massive battery bank, but the secret sauce is in the electronics:

Berserk doesn’t mess around with half-measures. Unlike single-frequency jammers that are easily outfoxed, this robot is a true multi-spectrum disruptor. It sweeps and blocks across all the frequencies commonly used by drones for command, video feeds, and navigation, making it just as effective against an off-the-shelf quadcopter as it is against more advanced Russian military UAVs.

The result: a drone pilot’s nightmare, and a welcome reprieve for Ukrainian troops who have spent too many nights dodging cheap aerial threats.

Just as importantly, Berserk is built to keep its human operators safe. The system is fully remote-controlled, letting Ukrainian soldiers run it from a secure distance rather than risking their necks on the frontline.

Kvertus has even begun field trials with a fiber-optic tether, allowing Berserk to shrug off even the nastiest Russian electronic warfare attacks. If you’re facing an enemy obsessed with signal-jamming and hacking, a hardwired connection is a major tactical advantage.

But what really sets Berserk apart in the fast-moving world of battlefield tech is its relentless pace of upgrades. Kvertus treats firmware updates the way most people treat clean laundry: non-negotiable and regularly scheduled.

This isn’t a “set it and forget it” system. Instead, each month brings new tweaks and capabilities, all informed by direct feedback from Ukrainian troops who actually use the gear. That kind of responsiveness is worth its weight in gold.

Kvertus’ Berserk UGV

How Kvertus Works (Hint: Like Their Hair Is on Fire)

A few years ago, Kvertus was putting out maybe a dozen devices a month. In 2022, as the drone threat exploded, so did production, now it’s thousands a month, with a QA process that involves dragging prototypes out to the front and seeing if they actually stop enemy drones.

No lab coats, no safety nets. This is R&D at machine-gun pace, with real soldiers giving the only feedback that matters: “It works, send more.”

Partnerships with other Ukrainian manufacturers and a push for new plants are part of Kvertus’ goal to make Ukraine as self-reliant as possible. The company’s ambition is to build a homegrown defense industry that can react, adapt, and innovate faster than any foreign supplier could hope to.

It’s easy to get lost in the specs, but the “why” is brutally simple: every drone downed, every mission jammed, is a life saved and a position held. The Russians are innovating, sure, but Ukraine’s answer is smarter tech that flips the script.

With Berserk entering serial production, the frontline is a chessboard, and Ukraine is moving the pieces faster than the Russians can keep up.

Kvertus, like so many new Ukrainian defense companies, didn’t wait for help from abroad; they started with a problem, prototyped, fielded, fixed, and delivered. And if Russia wants to keep sending drones, Ukraine now has a ground robot waiting for them. Not a bad bit of symmetry.

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