Humiliation in 15 seconds: the very first Russian robot collapses live before the stunned eyes of the public
Two technicians try to raise the AIdol humanoid robot after it fell during its official presentation at the Yarovit Hall Congress Center in Moscow, November 10, 2025. The machine, which was to embody Russian technological ambitions in terms of artificial intelligence, collapsed just seconds after going on stage. © Maxim Shipenkov, EPA, MAXPPP
The lights come on at the Yarovit Hall Congress Center, Rocky’s music resonates in the room, and AIdol enters, flanked by two technicians. The audience holds their breath. A few wobbly steps, and it’s disaster. The robot loses its balance and collapses full length, scattering pieces of plastic and metal across the stage. The organizers rush with a black curtain to hide the disaster, but the damage is done: the cameras have filmed everything. The video is now going around the world.
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A failure that says a lot about Russian ambitions
Vladimir Vitukhin, boss of Idol, the company that designed AIdol, wanted to be philosophical about the fiasco. “This is exactly what real-time learning is: when a successful mistake turns into knowledge, and a failed mistake turns into experience”he said according to the independent Russian media Meduza. In short: yes, it failed, but we will learn. The culprit? The robot’s stereo cameras, too sensitive to the room’s lighting. A calibration problem that should have been resolved before such a high-profile public demonstration.
Behind this crash, however, lie real technical feats. AIdol features nineteen servomotors, a silicone skin capable of reproducing a dozen basic emotions and hundreds of micro-expressions, and a 48-volt battery offering six hours of autonomy in continuous operation.
The company also highlights its 77% Russian components, a figure it wants to increase to 93% to escape Western sanctions which complicate high-technology imports. This quest for autonomy partly explains the rush: to show that Russia can compete without Western semiconductors or sensors.
During a second demonstration the same day, the robot managed to stand upright, but with human help. The problem remains: face to Boston Dynamics robots who chain the backflips, to Unitree machines who run at 3.3 meters per second, or to the brand new robot from Xpeng which literally amazed everyoneAIdol is lagging considerably behind. And the viral video of his bowl, shared in particular by former Ukrainian advisor Anton Gerashchenko, risks lasting damage to the image of Russian robotics on the international scene.
