Watch: Humanoid Robot 'Kicks Back' After Customer Shoves It in Russian Store

The customer wanted a handshake. Syoma, the humanoid robot working the floor at Volga Store 64 in Saratov, Russia, didn't offer one back. What happened in the next few seconds has now been watched by millions of people who can't quite agree on what they're looking at.

Security camera footage from September 2 shows the man extending a hand toward Syoma, which stays motionless. Seemingly annoyed, he gives the robot a light shove. Syoma responds almost immediately — shifting its weight, squaring up, and swinging a leg toward the customer in a motion that reads, unmistakably, like a kick. Staff rush over and power the robot down before anyone is hurt.

The store confirmed no one was injured, describing the incident as the robot going "out of control" and joking on social media that Syoma needed an "emotional reboot."

What Syoma actually is remains genuinely unclear from the footage alone. Most retail-facing humanoid robots aren't autonomous — they're typically remote-operated or running scripted responses rather than making independent decisions to retaliate. Tech analysts who've reviewed the clip have floated three competing explanations: a genuine software glitch, a pre-programmed defensive response to being touched, or a staged publicity stunt the store itself orchestrated.

Volga Store hasn't clarified which it was, and the ambiguity is doing a lot of the work in keeping the video circulating — footage that has now passed nine million views on Instagram alone, with comment sections split between Terminator jokes and genuine unease about how these machines are meant to behave around the public.

Staged or not, the clip has become an unplanned case study in a question retailers deploying humanoid robots haven't fully answered yet: what should one of these machines do when a customer gets physical with it? For now, Syoma is reportedly back in service at Volga Store — with, presumably, a firmer sense of personal space.