A crowd-funded remote-controlled mechanical stretcher invented by a toy designer is now evacuating injured Ukrainian soldiers from the front lines.

Ukraine’s ministry of defence said that the stretcher mounted on small tracks can carry up to 150kg over rough terrain, with its controller able to operate it safely from a distance of 100 metres.

It quoted a Ukrainian combat medic as saying that the mechanical stretcher made it far safer to evacuate injured soldiers under fire.

“You can’t carry anything quickly when everything is exploding around you,” the soldier, identified by his call-sign Kylm, told the armyinform.com.ua website as he described that an evacuation using a hand-carried stretcher moved at around one mile an hour.