Ukraine has bought thousands of uncrewed robotic ground vehicles next year to shuttle ammunition and supplies to infantry in the trenches and evacuate wounded soldiers.

The buggy-like vehicles, an example of how technology is transforming trench warfare in Ukraine, would spare troops from operating in areas near the front where Russian shelling and drones are rife, Mykhailo Fedorov, the deputy prime minister for innovation, said.

Mr Fedorov, who has overseen drone procurement for most of the war, told Reuters: “This year we purchased several thousand ground platforms, and next year, I believe, we need tens of thousands.”

The vehicles, he said, are already being used along the front and in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv’s troops carved out an enclave in an August incursion. Ukraine has several training centres to teach their use, he added.

Ukraine is slowly losing territory to Russia in the east. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said on Sunday that his army no longer had the firepower or manpower to take back occupied parts of his country, and is now pushing for a “diplomatic” solution.

The use of military technology has rapidly evolved, even as the war has been locked in a bloody, attritional struggle with no major battlefield changes despite Russia’s recently accelerating gains 33 months since the 2022 invasion.