Antonina, 77, had been hiding in a basement in Ukraine for four months before making the call to flee.
An elderly Ukrainian woman has been rescued from a war zone by a robot after struggling to escape her war-torn town on foot.
Antonina, 77, had been hiding in a basement in the Donetsk region for four months before she and her family took advantage of a pause in attacks and decided to flee.
While Antonina's family managed to escape, she struggled to keep up, with footage showing her using two walking sticks to pull herself along an isolated village road.
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Antonina said she was about to turn back to the bunker when she was approached by a futuristic robot
"Who knows what it was - how would I know?" she told Reuters.
But the strange machine would prove to be her salvation.
Unmanned military robots are regularly used by the Ukrainian military to evacuate wounded fighters but it's the first time it's been used to rescue a civilian.
A Ukrainian soldier says he sent the vehicle after Ukrainian drones spotted Antonia struggling.
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"There was another question; would she even understand our intentions?" he asked.
"We found some car mats there and used a spray can of paint to write, 'Grandma, get in'."
The evacuation spanned four hours along roads pockmarked by shelling, made dangerous because Russia has targeted the unmanned vehicles in the past.
Antonina is now safe, grateful for her survival and holding hope for the future.
"My dream is for the war to end, for there to be peace, and for people not to die the way they are dying now," Antonina said.
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